this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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290
TSMC suspended shipments to China firm after chip found on Huawei processor, sources say (www.reuters.com)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company suspended shipments to China-based chip designer Sophgo after a chip it made was found on a Huawei AI processor, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Sophgo had ordered chips from TSMC that matched the one found on Huawei's Ascend 910B, the people said. Huawei is restricted from buying the technology to protect U.S. national security. Reuters could not determine how the chip ended up on the Huawei product.

Tech research firm TechInsights discovered the TSMC chip on Huawei's Ascend 910B when it took apart the multi-chip processor, a different source told Reuters on Tuesday. Alerted to the finding, about two weeks ago TSMC notified the U.S., the source said.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There is likely a lot of US tech in that chip. TSMC is just a fab, they don't have a lot of their own technology, they buy thousands of pieces of tech from all over the world to make their chips. A lot of that comes from the US.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yes, but it would be an even bigger blow to TSMC if all US companies would stop buying from them. I'm pretty sure nvidia, AMD and Apple make a very sizable part of their customer base.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Not really. China would just buy it all if given the chance and the US companies would be fucked, since TSMC is practically a monopoly within its field at the moment.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's not as easy, as TSMC needs ASML hardware, which wouldn't sell it to TSMC anymore because they also want to sell to US companies.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I didn't say it would be easy, but anything TSMC currently produces would likely find a new buyer even with no US customers, so in the short run the loser would not be TSMC. In the long run, it's pointless to speculate, since US would probably try to level Taiwan down rather than let China have the semiconductor sector to itself... Let's hope it doesn't come to that, though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago

Do you think China could soak enough capacity to get TSMC to turn away from all of its major customers? Isn't most of their industrial design focused on consumer products with automaton, not high end chips? Are there many high end Chinese chip designs?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I'm sure TSMC would become untenable if either the US stopped buying or selling to them, though I tend to disagree and think that not licensing US tech would kill them faster. I'm pretty sure that much of that tech is not available from anywhere else and would just cause a full stop of their business, at least for some time. It's easier to survive on lower revenue than it is on a fully shuttered assembly line.