Several US lawmakers on Monday wrote to the country's Secretary of State Jacob Lew urging to stop the acquisition of a major American chip-maker firm by a private equity fund for being allegedly connected to the Chinese government.

The report over concerns on latest Chinese takeover bid come days after outgoing president Obama barred the Chinese firm from acquiring a major German semiconductor company that owned substantial American assets. The acquisition process was stopped on fear of security grounds.

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In a letter addressed to Lew, who also heads a panel that reviews foreign acquisition, 22 US house lawmakers expressed grave concern over the possible $ 1.3 billion takeover of Lattice Semiconductor Corp by a private equity firm Canyon Bridge Capital Partners.  

The deal drew immediate concerns from US officials after Lattice revealed in its latest filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Canyon Bridge's funding partly originates from China's central government.

"We are concerned with this transaction as [Canyon Bridge] appears to be directly affiliated with the government of the People's Republic of China and further appears to be a legal construction intended to obfuscate the involvement of numerous PRC state-owned enterprises during the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States review process," lawmakers wrote in a letter as quoted by the Wall Street Journal.

The US lawmaker also drew Lew's attention to media reports claiming that Canyon Bridge's has an indirect tie-up with Chinese space program. They said that the deal could have an adverse effect on the USmilitary supply chain and can lead to over-reliance on foreign-sourced technologies for several critical US Defense Department programs.

The 22 lawmakers called on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to act as decisively as it did in the Aixtron. It was CFIUS that recommended Obama to stop Aixtron's $717 million acquisition by Chinese firm Fujian.

Lattice is a semi-conductor company based in Oregon, Portland. It is known for manufacturing special programmable chips known as "field programmable gate arrays." Not as big as Intel Corp and Xilinx Inc, Lattice is relatively a small semi-conductor firm that reportedly employs nearly 700 employees.

Unlike Intel and Xilinx, Lattice does not make chips for military purposes.              

TagsLattice Semiconductor, china, China Oversees Acquisition, China and U.S., Chinese Takeover Blocked