Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday confirmed that chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) met with a US Department of Commerce official this week.
Chang met with US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Manufacturing Ian Steff and the two exchanged opinions, TSMC said, without elaborating.
TSMC’s statement came after the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) yesterday reported that Steff, who arrived in Taiwan on Thursday last week for a six-day visit to improve bilateral trade and investment, met with Chang in Hsinchu on Monday ahead of a meeting with representatives from the local semiconductor industry.
Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is highly complementary to that of the US and Taiwan is an important ally to the US, Steff said.
He also expressed hope that the two sides would step up their cooperation, the Liberty Times reported, citing sources who attended the meeting.
The meeting between Chang and Steff generated media interest in Taiwan, amid reports that China might buy fewer semiconductors from Taiwanese suppliers and more from the US.
The Wall Street Journal on Monday cited sources as saying that US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer have made a list of requests to China, including more Chinese purchases of US semiconductors.
The Financial Times on Monday also reported that Beijing had offered to buy more semiconductors from the US by diverting purchases from Taiwanese and South Korean suppliers.
TSMC only said that its operations would not be affected.
Separately, TSMC is scheduled to start mass production of Renesas Electronics Corp’s new automotive microcontroller unit (MCU) in 2020 on an exclusive basis, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News said yesterday, citing Japanese media reports.
The Japanese company’s automotive MCU, using 28-nanometer node technology, is the most advanced product in the world and has been adopted by several globally renowned auto parts makers, including Denso Corp, the newspaper said, adding that TSMC has submitted the product to clients for certification starting this month.
TSMC declined to comment on the Economic Daily News report.
The Renesas order might further lift TSMC’s earnings and sales, analysts said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)