Excluded Imports
Electronics buyers face review of a memory-chip trade case
Netlist’s complaint names Samsung, Google, NVIDIA, Broadcom and others as respondents. The commission wants public input on whether excluded imports could be replaced quickly by U.S. makers or other suppliers.
The U.S. International Trade Commission has opened a public-interest review in a DRAM dispute. That review focuses on how a possible exclusion order could affect consumers, domestic production and market supply.
- The ITC has opened a DRAM complaint and is seeking public-interest comments.
- The case covers DRAM devices, products containing them and components.
- The commission wants to know whether a remedy would hurt consumers or supply.
- Written public-interest comments are due eight calendar days after publication.
For electronics buyers, the real issue in a DRAM case is not the legal label on the filing. It is whether a trade remedy would make memory chips harder to source, raise costs for device makers, or squeeze the supply of products that depend on them. The U.S. International Trade Commission has now received a complaint titled Certain Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) Devices, Products Containing the Same, and Components Thereof (II), DN 3915, and it is asking for comments on public-interest issues raised by the case.
DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, is the short-term working memory inside a huge range of electronics. That means a dispute over DRAM can reach far beyond the companies named in the complaint and into the prices and availability of finished devices.
What the commission wants to know
The notice asks whether the relief requested in the complaint would affect public health and welfare, competitive conditions in the U.S. economy, the production of like or directly competitive articles in the United States, or U.S. consumers. It also asks for concrete help on how the subject articles are used here, whether U.S. production could replace them, and whether suppliers have the capacity to make up the volume within a commercially reasonable time.
The complaint names Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Samsung Semiconductor, Google, Super Micro Computer, NVIDIA and Broadcom as respondents, and it asks for a limited exclusion order, cease and desist orders and a bond during the presidential review period.
The clock on comments
The public version of the complaint is available through the commission’s Electronic Document Information System, or EDIS. Written submissions on the public interest are due no later than eight calendar days after publication of the notice in the Federal Register.