Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) “potentially” broke US law if it manufactured a processor for sanctioned telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co (華為), a senior US official said on Thursday.
US Undersecretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez was questioned about the 7-nanometer processor that SMIC made for Huawei during testimony before US lawmakers. When asked by US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul whether SMIC violated US controls, Estevez said “potentially, yes.”
The Chinese chipmaker’s shares slid as much as 5.5 percent in Hong Kong, its biggest intraday drop in about a month.
Photo: AFP
“We’ll assume that it was SMIC,” Estevez said. “I can’t talk about any investigations that may or may not be going, but we certainly share those concerns, and that’s certainly the reporting.”
Estevez described SMIC’s manufacturing process as “low-yield,” repeating past comments from commerce officials questioning China’s ability to produce advanced chips at scale and at a consistent performance threshold.
Estevez heads the agency’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which is responsible for chip export controls and sanctions that the administration if US President Joe Biden hopes will kneecap China’s semiconductor ambitions. Biden has introduced sweeping restrictions on the ability of Chinese companies to purchase advanced chips and chipmaking gear from US firms, and persuaded key allies including the Netherlands and Japan to introduce their own curbs.
Despite those efforts, Shenzhen, China-based Huawei managed to debut an advanced 7-nanometer chip in a smartphone that went on sale while US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo was visiting China in August last year. The chip in Huawei’s Mate 60 device was manufactured by SMIC but relied heavily on technology from Dutch equipment giant ASML Holding NV and US gear makers including Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc.
That equipment was exported to China before US and Dutch curbs limiting such transactions went into effect, Bloomberg News has reported.
“They did access tools before we put in our tool controls — not the highest-end tools, but the level just below that,” Estevez said. “Those tools will ossify over time and that process will be degraded.”
The US Bureau of Industry and Security in September last year said that it is probing the “purported” 7-nanometer chip, and Raimondo has vowed the “strongest possible” action to protect US national security.
The Biden administration is considering sanctioning Huawei’s secretive network of potential chipmaking partners, as well as a couple of firms officials say could purchase restricted equipment and sell it to the telecom giant.
US officials are also pushing their Dutch and Japanese counterparts to tighten their chip controls — and trying to persuade Germany and South Korea to join the arrangement, particularly to stem the flow of spare parts from those countries to China.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
RSS