JSR Corp., one of the Japanese materials makers hit by government restrictions on exports to South Korea, has received a permit to resume shipments, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The Tokyo-based maker of photo-resist, a light-sensitive liquid used by semiconductor manufacturers to imprint circuits on silicon wafers, was granted the license on Monday, the person said, asking not to be identified because the details are private.
The material is a key ingredient in Samsung Electronics Co.'s plans for chips with 7 nanometer or less line-widths, which are made via the so-called extreme ultra-violet (EUV) process.
The permit covers about 5 to 6 months of supply and has to be renewed for each successive grade of the material, the person said.
JSR spokesman Nobuhiko Kuwashima and a spokesman at Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Co., a rival photo-resist maker, declined to comment. Samsung Electronics also declined to comment.
This month, South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said the Japanese government had signaled it would approve exports of EUV photo-resist at some point.
In addition to photo-resist, Japan has targeted fluorinated polyimide and hydrogen fluoride, essential ingredients for the manufacture of the displays and semiconductors that go into almost every piece of modern consumer electronics. The move came after South Korean courts ruled that Japanese companies must compensate Koreans conscripted to work in factories and mines during the 1910-45 colonization of the peninsula.