The US government’s decision to impose new restrictions on the sale of semiconductors and chipmaking equipment to Chinese companies could hurt Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), along with the Chinese foundries of South Korean chipmakers, information advisory firm TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a statement on Saturday.
The measures announced by the US on Friday include a ban on advanced computing chips, including those used in artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, from being sold to China without a license. Production equipment is included in the ban.
That likely means Taiwan would be prohibited from selling semiconductor manufacturing equipment and advanced chips to Chinese companies, while sales to foreign companies operating in China would be reviewed on an individual basis.
Photo: AFP
The measures extend restrictions from standard semiconductors to memorychips, which could hurt Chinese and South Korean suppliers, TrendForce Center for Research Operations CEO Locke Chang (張小彪) said.
The companies making chips in China that could be most affected are Chinese chipmakers Yangtze Memory Technology Corp (YMTC, 長江存儲) and ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc (CXMT, 合肥長鑫存儲), and South Korean chipmakers SK Hynix Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, Chang said.
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), China’s largest chipmaker, could see next year’s sales grow 50 percent slower than forecast, as the latest export curbs hamper its capacity buildup, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Charles Shum (沈明) said in a note yesterday.
About 48 percent of SMIC capacity to be installed by next year requires gear from US tool makers such as Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc, he said.
Because the restrictions cover chip sales by companies using US technologies, the sales of TSMC’s advanced chips from its Taiwan fabs to Chinese clients could also be curtailed, TrendForce said.
TSMC’s fabs in China and most of China’s homegrown chipmakers use 28-nanometer processes or above, which means many of the advanced chips that are under the restrictions come from outside China.
Chips used in high-performance computing by US and Chinese design houses are mostly made by TSMC using 7nm and 5nm processes, and the curbs could reduce orders to TSMC for those chips, TrendForce said without providing a precise estimate.
TSMC declined to comment on the curbs, saying it was focused on its quarterly earnings conference on Thursday.
Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) on Sunday said the ban would have a limited effect on Taiwanese suppliers, as they seldom receive orders from China for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing chips.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Taiwanese prosecutors suspect that three people successfully smuggled at least one shipment of Nvidia Corp artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China after first exporting them to Japan, people familiar with the matter said. The trio was detained last week by the Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office for allegedly falsifying documents related to exports of Super Micro Computer Inc servers containing advanced Nvidia chips, which the US has barred from sale to China without a license from Washington. The move marked Taiwan’s first public crackdown on AI chip diversion after years of pressure from the US to take a more active role in curtailing
RSS