Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) listed the challenges of ensuring export control compliance by its customers, months after the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) silicon was found to have flowed to US-sanctioned Huawei Technologies Co (華為) via intermediaries.
“TSMC’s role in the semiconductor supply chain inherently limits its visibility and information available to it regarding the downstream use or user of final products that incorporate semiconductors manufactured by it,” the Hsinchu-based company said in its latest annual report released on Friday.
The world’s largest contract chipmaker said the constraint impedes its ability to prevent unintended end-uses of its semiconductors, as well as diverted shipments by business partners and third parties intent on circumventing sanctions.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
In terms of whether there are going to be compliance issues found, the go-to chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp in the report said there is “no assurance,” despite TSMC’s best efforts to abide by relevant export control regulations.
TSMC provides manufacturing services to many so-called fabless firms and chip designers, including Nvidia. Very often, the semiconductors it customizes for those companies end up being incorporated in gadgets and devices made by third parties, most often for legitimate purposes.
For instance, Qualcomm Inc and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) work with TSMC to make mobile chips used by phone makers, including Xiaomi Corp (小米).
However, an investigation by Canada-based research firm TechInsights last year showed that Huawei’s Ascend 910B AI chip contained semiconductors by TSMC.
The chipmaker halted shipments to a client at about the same time after it found out the semiconductors it made for the customer ended up with Huawei.
TSMC alluded to the incident in the annual report and said it notified Washington and Taipei in October last year that a chip it made for a customer might have been diverted to a restricted entity.
The chipmaker added that it has been cooperating with authorities’ requests for additional information and documents.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has followed the footsteps of former US president Joe Biden in curbing the flow of advanced technologies to China out of national security concerns.
The US earlier this month unveiled a fresh round of regulations to tighten China’s access to advanced AI chips.
Earlier this year, Washington called for chip producers like TSMC and Samsung Electronics Co to step up their scrutiny and due diligence of customers, especially Chinese firms. US officials simultaneously blacklisted 16 Chinese companies including Sophgo Technologies Ltd (算能科技), which was allegedly involved in Huawei getting access to TSMC chips last year.
Together with Sophgo, the US also added PowerAir Pte Ltd to the entity list after the South China Morning Post reported concerns about the Singapore-based company’s possible involvement in diverting TSMC chips to Huawei.
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