I kind of knew that Nexperia was a serious matter, but I was not familiar with the details.
"The stand-off between Nexperia’s Dutch headquarters and its Chinese operations has escalated into a war of words, with both sides accusing the other of undermining supply chains and spreading misinformation.
Nexperia’s head office in the Netherlands said it could no longer “guarantee the authenticity and quality standards of products delivered from the Nexperia facility in China” after October 13, as it had “lost transparency and oversight over the manufacturing processes” at its integrated circuit assembly plant in Dongguan.
That has to be a first in the chip industry – the “front end” operation of an integrated device maker telling customers it doesn’t trust the quality of work done by its “back-end” folks.
Nexperia’s head office also accused its China unit of refusing to make payments and committing a series of alleged violations, including the misappropriation of corporate seals, the creation of unauthorized bank accounts, the redirection of customer payments, and conveying false information to clients and employees.
Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of Commerce accused The Hague of “going its own way, without taking concrete steps to resolve the issue”, even as Beijing considered exempting some Nexperia orders from an export ban that it imposed last month on the firm’s China unit.
Although the temperature in the Sino-US tech war has cooled a bit since the Trump-Xi summit in South Korea last week, a swift resolution to the Nexperia row is not likely, according to analysts.
“Both parties have entered a state of talking at cross-purposes,” said Zhao Zhijiang, assistant researcher with Beijing-based think tank Anbound.
The Hague has cited mismanagement by Nexperia’s Chinese CEO and national security concerns as reasons for seizing control of the company on September 30. Dutch authorities had become aware of plans to move the Nexperia wafer fab to China. That would have been a blow to Europe’s chipmaking infrastructure, which is struggling as it is to attract fabs.
Unsealed Dutch court documents also showed that the US government had threatened to add Nexperia’s Netherlands subsidiary to a blacklist on October 1 unless the Chinese management was removed.
A prolonged impasse in the Nexperia dispute would likely expose the vulnerability of global auto industry supply chains, as we saw during Covid-19 when chip shortages shut down car production. ..."
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