Shares of major global semiconductor equipment companies rose on Thursday following reports that the United States was considering sanctions on China’s chip industry that fell short of earlier proposals.

ASML

was up about 2.9% in afternoon trading in Europe. Tokyo Electron

its shares closed up 6.7% in Japan.

Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Washington is considering further measures to restrict sales of semiconductor equipment and artificial intelligence memory chips to China, but the new rules may be less stringent than earlier proposals that were seen as more stringent.

The U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry declined to comment on the Bloomberg report.

The United States is currently considering reducing the number of suppliers to Chinese tech giant Huawei on its export blacklist of “entity lists.” One key Chinese company that will not be blacklisted is reportedly Changxin Memory Technologies, a storage company and potential competitor to the likes of SK Hynix and Samsung.

ASML had previously expected revenue from China to fall 30% next year, according to Jefferies analysts. Jefferies said on Thursday that excluding the company could mean ASML’s sales in China “will fall less than expected” next year.

ASML is caught in the vortex of the US-China battle for semiconductor technology because of its key position in the chip supply chain.

ASML makes the machines that chipmakers need to make the most advanced semiconductors. These machines have not been exported to China due to various export controls. Recently, the Dutch and US governments have imposed restrictions that make it more difficult for ASML to export some of its less advanced machines to China.

The company sells its machines to “fabs,” or factories that actually make chips, such as TSMC in Taiwan and SMIC in China. Any rules that hit demand or directly target semiconductor manufacturers would have a negative impact on ASML.

The Bloomberg report suggests that further sanctions being considered would target Chinese companies that make semiconductor manufacturing equipment, rather than the factories that actually make chips. This would also be a positive for ASML and other foreign semiconductor equipment companies that sell to fabs.

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