CLA-2-84:OT:RR:NC:1:120
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director, Commercial & Trade Facilitation Division
Regulations & Rulings
Headquarters, Customs & Border Protection
FROM: Chief, Metals & Machinery Branch
National Commodity Specialist Division
SUBJECT: Country of Origin determination
REFERENCE: Headquarters File Number H082476
We have reviewed a country of origin request from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati on behalf of their client, Scale Computing Company regarding whether imported Commodity Based Clustered Storage Units (ICS Units) are products of the United States; and whether the appropriate country of origin is of US origin.
The motherboard is imported from China assembled with integrated circuits, an EEPROM, transistors, diodes, a capacitor, resistors and communication buses. From the information provided, the board is solely or principally used with an ADP storage unit and should be classified in heading 8473.
Once imported, the motherboard will be installed in a chassis (8473) from China, along with various other non-originating components including a CPU (8473) from Malaysia, hard disk drive (8471.70.4065) from Thailand, memory module (8473), air shroud, cables (8543) and heat sink (8473) from China, to complete a rack mounted server. Each of these components is substantially transformed into a rack mounted storage device (8471.70.4065). It does not have pairing capability until the US made software is downloaded to it, which enables the device to function as a cloud computing device similar to a network storage RAID array, which are hard disk drives strung together to allow redundancy in different locations. The software completes a network storage function instead of just a hard disk drive found in a rack mounted storage device. The RAID array storage subsystem components and hard disk drive canisters usually include a disk array controller frame, which effects the interface between the subsystem’s storage units and a CPU. In this case, the software effects the interconnection between the CPU and the storage units and the classification of the finished item becomes 8471.80.1000. Thus, the non-originating components become a new product, name and classification.
The imported Commodity Based Clustered Storage Units (ICS Units) are substantially transformed as a result of the U.S. processing, and therefore the country of origin of the imported Commodity Based Clustered Storage Units (ICS Units: SN1000, SN2000, and SN4000) will be the United States.
This ruling is being issued under the provisions of Part 177 of the Customs Regulations (19 CFR Part 177).
If you have any further questions regarding this matter, please contact National Import Specialist Denise Faingar at (646) 733-3010. Please send a copy of your reply to this office.
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Thomas J. Russo Date