ECCN 3A090: Subcategories, License Requirements, and Exceptions

ECCN 3A090 is the U.S. export control classification that covers high-performance integrated circuits used for artificial intelligence and advanced computing, including GPUs, tensor processing units, neural processors, AI accelerators, certain ASICs, and high-bandwidth memory. If your chip meets the performance thresholds in this entry, you generally need a license from the Bureau of Industry and Security before exporting, reexporting, or transferring it, and for the top tier that license requirement applies worldwide. The entry now has three subcategories with different thresholds and different country restrictions, so where your product lands within 3A090 determines almost everything about your compliance obligations.

The Three Subcategories

ECCN 3A090 sits on the Commerce Control List maintained by BIS, the Commerce Department agency that regulates dual-use exports.¹ The entry breaks into three parts.

3A090.a covers the highest-performance chips. A chip falls here if it has a total processing performance (TPP) of 4,800 or more, or a TPP of 1,600 or more paired with a performance density of 5.92 or more. These face the broadest restrictions, including a worldwide license requirement.²

3A090.b catches chips just below the top tier. It covers integrated circuits with a TPP between 2,400 and 4,800 and a performance density between 1.6 and 5.92, or a TPP of 1,600 or more with a performance density between 3.2 and 5.92. Chips at this tier need a license only for certain destinations.²

3A090.c covers high bandwidth memory (HBM) with a memory bandwidth density greater than 2 gigabytes per second per square millimeter. HBM was added because these specialized memory chips pair with AI accelerators to make large-scale model training possible.²

The chip types captured under 3A090.a and 3A090.b include GPUs, tensor processing units, neural processors, in-memory processors, vision processors, co-processors, field-programmable logic devices, and application-specific integrated circuits.²

How To Tell If Your Chip Crosses the Line

Total Processing Performance

TPP measures a chip’s peak computational output across all supported operations and bit lengths. You take the chip’s highest achievable performance for dense matrix operations, whether integer (like INT8) or floating point (like FP16), across every supported bit length, and use the highest result. The threshold that triggers the broadest controls under 3A090.a is a TPP of 4,800. A chip below 4,800 but at or above 1,600 can still land in 3A090.a if its performance density is high enough, or in 3A090.b if it meets that subcategory’s paired thresholds.²

Performance Density

Performance density measures how much computing power is packed into a given die area. It captures chips that may not hit the raw TPP ceiling but are engineered to deliver exceptional efficiency in a compact form. A chip with a TPP of 1,600 and a performance density of 5.92 or more is treated the same as a chip with a TPP of 4,800 for licensing under 3A090.a.²

The Datacenter Carve-Out

Chips that are not designed or marketed for use in datacenters and have a TPP below 4,800 fall outside 3A090.a and 3A090.b entirely. That carve-out keeps most consumer processors and personal-device chips out of the entry. Fabrication facilities and outsourced assembly and test companies face a rebuttable presumption, though: any “applicable advanced logic integrated circuit” produced using 16/14 nanometer nodes or below is presumed to be 3A090.a and datacenter-destined unless the presumption is rebutted.³

Getting a Classification in Writing

If you are uncertain whether your product crosses a threshold, you can request a formal commodity classification from BIS through the SNAP-R portal. BIS will issue a Commodity Classification Automated Tracking System (CCATS) number confirming the ECCN down to the paragraph level. You need a Company Identification Number and an active SNAP-R account to submit the request.⁴ A ruling in writing protects you if the classification is ever questioned.

Where a License Is Required

Geographic scope varies sharply by subcategory. The rules use the Country Groups defined in the Export Administration Regulations, with Country Group D:5 being the most restrictive tier for advanced computing.

3A090.a: Worldwide

The highest-tier chips need a license for export, reexport, or in-country transfer to any destination worldwide.² That is the broadest geographic scope BIS applies to any commercial technology. License exceptions can authorize specific shipments, but the baseline is that you need authorization before these chips leave the country.

3A090.b: Restricted Country Groups

Second-tier chips need a license only when headed to destinations in Country Groups D:1, D:4, or D:5, excluding countries that also appear in Country Groups A:5 or A:6.² Country Group D:5 alone includes close to 50 countries, among them China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, and Israel.⁵ The A:5 and A:6 carve-outs remove certain close allies from the restriction.

3A090.c: Macau and Country Group D:5

Controlled HBM needs a license for shipments to Macau or any Country Group D:5 destination.² The narrower scope reflects the fact that HBM is a component rather than a standalone processor, but it remains critical to the systems BIS wants to keep away from certain end-users.

Who the Customer Is Also Matters

Geography is not the only trigger. Under 15 CFR 744.23, a license is required for certain advanced computing items even when the destination country is otherwise unrestricted, if the end-user is headquartered in, or has an ultimate parent company headquartered in, Macau or a Country Group D:5 destination.⁶ A cloud provider headquartered in China but operating out of a Southeast Asian data center still triggers the requirement. The provision closes a loophole that would otherwise let restricted entities reach controlled chips through foreign subsidiaries.

License Exceptions That May Apply

Several license exceptions can authorize shipments of ECCN 3A090 items without an individual license. Which one is available depends on the subcategory.

NAC/ACA (Notified Advanced Computing / Advanced Computing Authorized): available for 3A090.a chips that are not designed or marketed for datacenter use and have a TPP of 4,800 or more, and for 3A090.b chips that are designed or marketed for datacenter use. Not available for 3A090.c.²
HBM: available for 3A090.c under the conditions in 15 CFR 740.25.²
AIA (Authorized IaaS Allocations): available for 3A090.a.
ACM (Authorized Chip Manufacturer): available across the entry.
LPP (Licensed Production Partner): available for 3A090.a.
RPL (Servicing and Replacement): permits repairs and parts replacements for items that were originally exported lawfully.
GOV (Government End-Users): limited to shipments by or consigned to U.S. government agencies.
TSU (Technology and Software Unrestricted): covers certain unrestricted technology and software transfers.

None of these exceptions override the entity-based restrictions in 15 CFR 744.23. If a shipment needs a license because of who the end-user is, rather than where they sit, these exceptions do not help.

The Foreign Direct Product Reach

These controls do not stop at the U.S. border. Under the Advanced Computing Foreign Direct Product rule in 15 CFR 734.9(h), a chip manufactured entirely outside the United States can still be subject to U.S. export controls if it was produced using American technology or software.⁷

The rule has two prongs, both of which must be met. The product scope: the foreign-made item must be a direct product of U.S.-origin technology or software specified in certain ECCNs, or produced by a plant that is itself a direct product of such technology. The destination scope: the item must be destined anywhere worldwide, or the underlying technology must have been developed by an entity headquartered in Macau or Country Group D:5 for use in producing semiconductor masks or integrated circuit wafers.⁷

Because virtually every advanced semiconductor fabrication process relies on U.S.-origin design software or manufacturing technology at some stage, this rule gives U.S. regulators an unusually long reach. A chip fabricated in Taiwan or South Korea using American electronic design automation tools and classified under 3A090 can fall within U.S. jurisdiction for export control purposes, even if it never touches American soil.

How BIS Reviews Applications

Not every license application receives the same treatment. BIS applies a tiered review policy that runs from presumption of approval to presumption of denial, based on the chip tier, the destination, and the end-user.

For 3A090.a chips headed to China, Macau, or Country Group D:5, there is a limited case-by-case review window for chips with a TPP below 21,000 and total DRAM bandwidth below 6,500 GB/s, but only if the applicant provides detailed supplementary information about the transaction. All other applications for those destinations face a presumption of denial.⁸ Presumption of denial means BIS starts from the position that the application will be rejected, and the exporter bears the burden of showing why an exception is warranted.

For HBM under 3A090.c, the review policy splits based on control of the receiving entity. If the end-user is neither headquartered in nor ultimately owned by an entity in Macau or Country Group D:5, applications get a presumption of approval. Everyone else faces presumption of denial.⁸

The review process pulls in multiple agencies. The Departments of Defense, Energy, and State weigh in on applications involving items controlled for national security and assess the geopolitical implications of each proposed export.⁹

Filing a License Application

When no license exception covers your transaction, prepare a detailed technical data sheet for the chip, including its TPP calculation, performance density, and, for HBM, memory bandwidth density. Accuracy on these numbers matters, because they determine how BIS categorizes the product and which review policy applies.

For shipments to the People’s Republic of China, you also need a Statement by Ultimate Consignee and Purchaser, filed on Form BIS-711.¹⁰ The form requires the recipient to identify their full legal name, physical address, business activities, and exactly how the controlled hardware will be used.¹¹ Vague end-use descriptions are a reliable way to get an application delayed or rejected. BIS may also require support documents on a case-by-case basis for other destinations.

All license applications go through the SNAP-R portal, which accepts digital uploads of technical specifications and support documents. An authorized company representative must provide an electronic signature.⁴

Recordkeeping and Penalties

Every transaction involving ECCN 3A090 items generates records you are legally required to keep for five years. The clock runs from the date of export, the date of any known reexport or diversion, or the date the transaction otherwise concludes, whichever is latest.¹² Records include license applications, shipping documents, technical specifications, end-user statements, and correspondence tied to the transaction.

Penalties are steep. Anyone who willfully violates U.S. export control laws faces up to $1,000,000 in criminal fines, and individuals face up to 20 years in prison.¹³ Prosecutors do not need to prove you knew the exact regulation you were breaking, only that you deliberately chose to act without regard for whether the conduct was lawful.

Civil penalties can reach $300,000 per violation or twice the value of the transaction, whichever is greater, and inflation adjustments have pushed the per-violation cap above $374,000.¹³ BIS can also revoke your export license or bar you from exporting altogether. A denial order effectively shuts a company out of international trade for the duration of the ban, and those orders are published in the Federal Register.

1
Bureau of Industry and Security. 15 CFR Part 738 – Commerce Control List Overview and the Country Chart
2
Federal Register. Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 30
3
Federal Register. Implementation of Additional Due Diligence Measures for Advanced Computing Integrated Circuits
4
Bureau of Industry and Security. SNAP-R
5
eCFR. Supplement No. 1 to Part 740 – Country Groups
6
eCFR. 15 CFR 744.23 – Advanced Computing Items
7
eCFR. 15 CFR 734.9 – Foreign-Direct Product (FDP) Rules
8
eCFR. 15 CFR 742.6 – Regional Stability
9
Bureau of Industry and Security. 15 CFR Part 750 – Application Processing, Issuance, and Denial
10
eCFR. 15 CFR 748.9 – Support Documents
11
Bureau of Industry and Security. Statement by Ultimate Consignee and Purchaser
12
eCFR. 15 CFR 762.6 – Period of Retention
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 4819 – Penalties