Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company suspended shipments to China-based chip designer Sophgo after a chip it made was found on a Huawei AI processor, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Sophgo had ordered chips from TSMC that matched the one found on Huawei’s Ascend 910B, the people said. Huawei is restricted from buying the technology to protect U.S. national security. Reuters could not determine how the chip ended up on the Huawei product.
Tech research firm TechInsights discovered the TSMC chip on Huawei’s Ascend 910B when it took apart the multi-chip processor, a different source told Reuters on Tuesday. Alerted to the finding, about two weeks ago TSMC notified the U.S., the source said.
They could ignore sanctions but that would mean they’d be sanctioned as well. Pretty much every manufacturer and financial institution has to obey laws in multiple jurisdictions if they want to operate within those markets.
Would the USA actually sanction TSMC though? Wouldn’t that be a massive blow to companies like apple?
They need asml lithography equipment without which they are a nothing burger and to get that you need to play nice with US and EU.
Lithography but also clients like Apple, Intel, AMD and so on. Without them they’re also toast. World today is so interconnected that at large scale it’s really hard not to be compliant with sanctions.
You are forgetting that Taiwan has an interest in supporting the U.S. led sanctions.
People talk about Apple only but every competitive chip designer (which Intel is not) depends on TSMC, so they all get set back.
But TSMC gets to close, and what’s more dangerous for the political stability of Taiwan is that since they don’t have oil they lose West military protection.