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
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
RSS