Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it had notified the US government that one of its chips was reportedly found in a Huawei Technologies Co (華為) product, in a possible breach of US export restrictions.
International media reports said that Canada-based research firm TechInsights recently discovered an Ascend 910B chip manufactured by TSMC while taking apart Huawei’s highest-end artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators. The Ascend 910B chip is considered the Chinese company’s most advanced AI chip.
TechInsights informed TSMC of its findings before publishing them in a report — which has yet to be released — while TSMC notified the US Department of Commerce, Reuters reported.
Photo: Bloomberg
The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for national security reasons, meaning the Shenzhen-based company is barred from doing business with TSMC and its contract chipmaking peers without a US government license.
The Taiwanese chipmaker has said it stopped all shipments to Huawei after Sept. 15, 2020, which the company reiterated when asked about the TechInsights report.
“TSMC is a law-abiding company, and we are committed to complying with all applicable rules and regulations, including applicable export controls. In compliance with the regulatory requirements, TSMC has not supplied to Huawei since mid-September 2020,” the company said in a statement yesterday. “We proactively communicated with the US Commerce Department regarding the matter in the report. We are not aware of TSMC being the subject of any investigation at this time.”
Huawei said in a statement it has not “produced any chips via TSMC after the implementation of the amendments made by the US Department of Commerce to its FDPR that target Huawei in 2020,” referring to the foreign direct product rule — a US trade restriction.
“Huawei has never launched the 910B chip,” the company said.
A commerce department spokesperson said that the agency’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), which is responsible for semiconductor trade restrictions, is “aware of reporting alleging potential violations of US export controls.”
“We cannot comment on whether any investigation is ongoing,” the spokesperson said. “BIS is committed to ensuring compliance with the robust controls we have put in place related to China’s acquisition of advanced semiconductors.”
BIS officials met with TSMC executives in the middle of this month about issues relating to the chipmaker’s supply chain, including whether third-party distributors might provide China the ability to access restricted technology, said one of the people, who described the meeting as collaborative.
The meeting did not touch on the TechInsights report, the person said.
It is not clear whether Huawei had designed or placed orders for the 910B chip prior to its blacklisting. The processor was first spotted in server products as early as 2022, Washington-based think tank the Center for Security and Emerging Technology said.
It started gaining exposure in Chinese news outlets last year, although Huawei has not officially hosted a launch event.
IFlytek Co (科大訊飛) unveiled a new server product with the AI accelerator in August last year, and Baidu Inc (百度) ordered more than 1,000 910B units last year, Taipei-based research firm TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most