The efforts of the administration of US President Joe Biden to untangle global chip supply snarls is facing resistance from lawmakers and executives in Taiwan and South Korea, complicating attempts to resolve the bottlenecks hurting industries from automobiles to consumer electronics.
The US Department of Commerce late last month asked companies in the semiconductor supply chain to fill out questionnaires by Nov. 8 seeking information regarding the ongoing chip shortage. While the request is voluntary, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo has told industry representatives that the White House might invoke the Defense Production Act or other tools to force their hands if they do not respond.
The issue has become particularly thorny in Taiwan, home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which accounts for more than half of the global contract chipmaking market. That dominance has prompted rivals such as Intel Corp to call for more domestic investment, and spurred governments in the US, EU, Japan and China to mull efforts to bolster their own chip industries to reduce their reliance on the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing hub.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
“TSMC absolutely will not hand over sensitive information, particularly client data,” TSMC general counsel Sylvia Fang (方淑華) told reporters on Wednesday.
Three of TSMC’s top five customers are in the US, with the largest, Apple Inc, accounting for a quarter of total sales.
“TSMC is still assessing how to respond,” Fang said.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
Smaller peer United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) declined to comment on how it would respond to the US query, although chief financial officer Liu Chi-tung (劉啟東) said that the company would protect customers’ non-public information.
The South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on Wednesday released a statement expressing concern over the scope of the US request. The Joongang Daily also cited unidentified people at local chipmakers as saying that they might have a difficult time complying with the requests.
The potential standoff comes as chip shortages are going from bad to worse. Lead times in the industry — the gap between putting in a semiconductor order and taking delivery — rose for the ninth month in a row to an average of 21.7 weeks last month, the Susquehanna Financial Group said. That is by far the longest since the firm began tracking the data in 2017.
In the questionnaire, chipmakers were asked to comment on inventories, backlogs, delivery times, procurement practices and what they were doing to increase output.
The US Department of Commerce is also requesting information on each product’s top customers.
However, the department has come to realize that many are struggling with the questionnaire and it is preparing an information handout to help companies respond, Fang said.
“If the US is looking to resolve supply chain issues, we will see how we can best assist them,” Fang said. “We have done a lot to help, including increasing output of auto chips and prioritizing auto customers to a certain degree.”
The US reach for chipmaker data has also run into resistance from Taiwanese politicians and shareholders. The Ministry of Economic Affairs on Saturday said that Taiwanese chipmakers would not provide information pertaining to “trade secrets” without consent from customers, offering its support as they communicate with clients and the White House.
That has not quelled the protest from opposition lawmakers.
“Taiwan should not cave in automatically when it comes to dealing with the US,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Alex Fai (費鴻泰) was reported saying on Wednesday. “If we supply the US with all the information it’s seeking, will TSMC still be competitive in the world in the future?”
An individual investor petitioned a district court in Taiwan earlier this week to prevent TSMC from handing over sensitive information, including the names of its customers, to foreign governments, said Rachel Huang (黃雨柔), a lawyer representing the person at Liu & Partners (華通國際法律事務所) in Taipei.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
INFLATION CONSIDERATION: The BOJ governor said that it would ‘keep making appropriate decisions’ and would adjust depending on the economy and prices The Bank of Japan (BOJ) yesterday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years and said more increases are in the pipeline if conditions allow, in a sign of growing conviction that it can attain the stable inflation target it has pursued for more than a decade. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s policy board increased the rate by 0.2 percentage points to 0.75 percent, in a unanimous decision, the bank said in a statement. The central bank cited the rising likelihood of its economic outlook being realized. The rate change was expected by all 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The
RSS