From Silicon Valley to Shanghai: China's AMEC founder bets on Chinese chips.
New US rules for its citizens in China have induced Gerald Yin to revert to Chinese citizenship
Gerald Yin, founder and chairman of Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. (AMEC), one of China's most prominent chip equipment makers, has renounced his U.S. citizenship to recover his Chinese nationality, a move that will precipitate a stock sale to meet certain tax obligations.
According to a Jan. 8 exchange filing, the 82-year-old plans to offload a 0.046% stake in AMEC during the period between Jan. 30 and Apr. 29. The filing explicitly mentions reverting to his Chinese citizenship and the need to pay related taxes as the reason for the divestment. Yin currently holds a 0.664% stake in the company.
The nationality change marks a significant milestone for the industry veteran, known as the "father of China's etching machines," as Beijing and Washington remain locked in a tech war that has placed transnational executives in the crosshairs of geopolitical strategy.
Yin's decision comes against the backdrop of tightened U.S. export controls. On Oct. 7, 2022, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) under the U.S. Department of Commerce released new rules prohibiting U.S. persons from supporting the development or production of advanced chips at facilities inside China.
As many key technical positions in China's semiconductor-related companies were held by Chinese-Americans, the market speculated that these executives faced a binary choice: renounce U.S. citizenship or resign from their Chinese firms. AMEC's 2022 annual report listed Yin as a U.S. citizen, but its 2024 annual report released in April 2025 confirmed his nationality is once again Chinese.
Born in Beijing in 1944, Yin's career trajectory mirrors the globalization and subsequent fragmentation of the semiconductor industry. After studying at the University of Science and Technology of China and earning a master's degree from Peking University, he pursued a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Following his doctoral studies, Yin spent two decades in Silicon Valley working at Intel, Lam Research and Applied Materials, eventually becoming a U.S. citizen.
At Applied Materials, he held various senior roles like vice president and chief technology officer for its Asian headquarters. According to AMEC's IPO prospectus, Yin holds 89 U.S. patents and more than 200 international patents, giving him the reputation as one of the most successful Chinese-Americans in Silicon Valley.
Yin returned to China in 2004 at the age of 60 to establish AMEC in Shanghai with a team of 15 engineers from Silicon Valley. The move was reportedly encouraged by Jiang Shangzhou, a former deputy director of the Shanghai Economic Commission, who urged Yin to break foreign monopolies on critical chip equipment.
AMEC has since grown into a major chip equipment supplier, reporting an annual revenue of more than 9 billion yuan ($1.29 billion) and a market capitalization of over 220.8 billion yuan in 2024. Industry observers describe AMEC as a specialist in high-end etching equipment, and its machines are used in 5-nanometer chip production.
The company's ascent has not been without setbacks. In October 2007, Applied Materials sued AMEC and Yin for alleged theft of trade secrets. Yin spent $25 million on legal defense and internal audits to prove the technology AMEC used was self-developed, eventually reaching a settlement after two and a half years. AMEC has subsequently prevailed in patent disputes against other global competitors like Lam Research and Veeco.
More recently, AMEC has contested its inclusion on a U.S. blacklist linking it to the Chinese military. The U.S. Department of Defense added AMEC to its list of Chinese military companies in January 2024. Yin publicly condemned the decision as "wrong and baseless." AMEC sued the Pentagon in August 2024, leading to the company's removal from the list in December of that year.
Despite the legal victories, Yin acknowledges the challenging environment. In a July 2024 interview, he noted that while a globally collaborative supply chain is ideal, geopolitical tensions have made localization an unavoidable choice. He stated that domestic suppliers effectively accelerated their efforts allowing the company to achieve basic autonomy by the summer of 2024, despite a gap in quality and reliability under advanced overseas standards.
AMEC has also expanded its product portfolios by pushing into thin film deposition. In November 2022, the company successfully developed its first thin film deposition equipment. As of June 2025, it delivered more than 6,800 plasma etching machines and chemical vapor deposition machines, which were used in more than 150 production lines worldwide.
In the first half of 2025, its revenue grew 43.9% year on year to about 5 billion yuan, with etching equipment sales accounting for over 76% of the total revenue. Yin said in the financial report that the company aims to cover 50% to 60% of high-end semiconductor equipment needs within the next five to ten years.