TSMC is at a crossroads. This manufacturer of Taiwanese semiconductors, The Major on the Planetis subject to an investigation of the US Commerce Department Since October 2024. The organization that Gina Raimondo then led suspected that this company could secretly arrived agreements with Huawei to take care of the manufacture of your semiconductors for smartphones and applications of artificial intelligence (AI). At the current situation of tension between the US and China this accusation is very serious.
The US government definitely included Huawei in its blacklist in 2020, and one of the immediate consequences of this decision was that TSMC should stop producing semiconductors for this Chinese company. Two years later, in October 2022, the US administration decided to include All the Chinese semiconductor industry In his blacklist, which further cut the TSMC client portfolio. Fortunately for this company, Everything seemed to be clarified just a month ago.
Finally, TSMC is likely to be unscathed from this conflict
In December 2024 TSMC broke its commercial relationship with Powerair, a Singapore company that, apparently, was responsible for delivering to Huawei the chip manufactured by TSMC that appeared on the card for the Ascend 910b. Interestingly, this was the second company presumably responsible for reaching Huawei integrated circuits produced by TSMC. In 2023 this last company stopped offering its manufacturing service to the Chinese Chips Design Company Sophgo to illegally mediate with Huawei.
The CSIS has accused TSMC of having made two million Ascend 910 chips indirectly for Huawei
However, their problems did not end here. At the beginning of last March the CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies), An American organization that is dedicated to elaborating strategies that seek to guarantee the security of the US, accused TSMC of have manufactured indirectly for HuaweI For 2024, no less than two million chips of the Ascend 910. With these integrated circuits this Chinese company could have produced a huge number of units of its ascend 910c solution, which is currently its hardware for the most advanced.
The most interesting thing was that the CSIS argued that Huawei had once again resorted to “ghost” companies that acted as intermediaries between her and TSMC. However, the author of the report did not exculpate the Taiwanese company: “TSMC manufactured large amounts of Ascend 910b of Huawei in the name of ghost companies and sent them to China, thus violating US export controls.”
This is the reason why, According to Reutersthis integrated circuit manufacturer could receive a fine of billion dollars, or even more, from the Department of Commerce. US regulation establishes that in this context The sanction can ascend twice the value of the transactions that have violated export restrictions, which could place this fine as one of the highest in history by this type of infraction.
Image | TSMC
More information | Reuters
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