Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has stopped new orders from Huawei Technologies Co (華為) in response to Washington’s move aimed at further limiting chip supplies to the Chinese company, the Nikkei reported yesterday, citing multiple sources.
The orders that TSMC took before the new ban and those that were already in production are not affected, and could continue to proceed if those chips could be shipped before the middle of September, the report said.
TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker and a key Huawei supplier, on Thursday last week announced plans to build a US-based plant and on Friday added that it was “following the US export rule change closely.”
Photo: David Chang / EPA-EFE
A new rule, unveiled on Friday by the US Department of Commerce, expands US authority to require licenses for sales to Huawei of semiconductors made abroad with US technology, vastly expanding its reach to halt exports to the world’s No. 2 smartphone maker.
TSMC said it does not disclose order details and added that the report was “purely market rumor.”
Huawei yesterday assailed the latest US move to cut it off from semiconductor suppliers as a “pernicious” attack that would sow chaos in the global technology sector and other industries.
“The decision was arbitrary and pernicious, and threatens to undermine the entire [technology] industry worldwide,” a Huawei spokesman said.
Huawei, which has largely weathered an escalating 18-month campaign by US President Donald Trump’s administration to isolate it internationally, said its business “will inevitably be affected” by the new American salvo.
It would “impact the expansion, maintenance and continuous operations of networks worth hundreds of billions of dollars that we have rolled out in more than 170 countries,” it said.
The statement was issued during an annual summit of technology analysts that it organizes at its headquarters in Shenzhen, China.
“This decision by the US government does not just affect Huawei,” it said. “It will have a serious impact on a wide number of global industries” by creating uncertainty in the chip sector and technology supply chains.
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