(Bloomberg) -- China’s decision to bar Micron Technology Inc.’s memory chips has escalated tensions with the US, fueling worries over what other technology firms Beijing may target.

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Policymakers in the Asian nation, however, have limited scope to find alternatives to US firms in the semiconductor supply chain that ranges widely from chip design, manufacturing, equipment to materials. For now, it’ll be almost impossible for China to replace some key products made by top American companies including Qualcomm Inc., Nvidia Corp., Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., analysts say.

The spat over semiconductors between the world’s two biggest economies has been hurting investor sentiment since the US in October imposed a sweeping ban on exports of advanced chips and know-how to China. That said, the scale of decoupling between the two nations is likely to be smaller than feared given China’s reliance.

“Head-on against the US in semiconductors is a costly, if not losing move that is not strategically sound for China,” said Redmond Wong, a strategist at Saxo Capital Markets based in Hong Kong. “China is not seeking decoupling nor deglobalization. It is only seeking gradual changes to the global order to be less American dominant.”

Logic Chips

Logic chips are deemed as the “brains” of electronics. This segment includes central processing units (CPUs) that are built for general functionality of equipment, and graphics processing units (GPUs) which are optimized for visual displays and AI computation.

This sub-sector is deemed as one of the most difficult areas for China to ban American components. The US has a more-than 60% market share in the logic chip segment, according to a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. report.