It cannot guarantee that their avant -garde chips will not arrive in China

TSMC faces a crossroads. At the current situation of tension between the US and China this Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer, The Major on the Planethe has chosen to develop drastically Your production infrastructure In the country led by Donald Trump. This strategy will allow you dodge future tariffs which presumably will apply to the integrated circuits produced abroad. However, this is not all.

In addition, having more manufacturing plants and more advanced packaging centers in the US will allow TSMC to better protect your business if in the future it is triggered A war conflict between China and Taiwan. In these circumstances it is evident that the company led by CC Wei is interested in sustaining an affable relationship with the US. However, their ties are currently committed because of the integrated circuits manufactured by TSMC that are arriving in China.

TSMC has been sincere with the US

This semiconductor manufacturer is subject to an investigation by the US Department of Commerce Since October 2024. The organization that then led Gina Raimondo suspected that this company could have secretly reached agreements with Huawei to take care of the manufacture of its semiconductors for smartphones and applications of artificial intelligence (AI).

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 getting to 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.

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 having 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 amount of units of its ascend 910c solution, which is currently its hardware for the most advanced.

As we explain in early April, TSMC could receive a fine of one billion dollars, or even more, of 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 restrictionswhat could place this fine as one of the highest in history for this type of infraction.

TSMC has recently published its last annual report and has not let out the opportunity to explain to the US Administration What is your position in this conflict: “Our role in the semiconductor supply chain inherently limits our visibility and the information we have about the final use or the end user of the products that incorporate chips manufactured by us. This limitation hinders our ability to fully guarantee that the semiconductors we produce are not diverted to an endless use or user avoid controls. ” It is likely that the US responds to this TSMC statement very soon. We will keep you aware of everything.

Image | TSMC

More information | TSMC

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