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.
There is likely a lot of US tech in that chip. TSMC is just a fab, they don’t have a lot of their own technology, they buy thousands of pieces of tech from all over the world to make their chips. A lot of that comes from the US.
Yes, but it would be an even bigger blow to TSMC if all US companies would stop buying from them. I’m pretty sure nvidia, AMD and Apple make a very sizable part of their customer base.
Not really. China would just buy it all if given the chance and the US companies would be fucked, since TSMC is practically a monopoly within its field at the moment.
It’s not as easy, as TSMC needs ASML hardware, which wouldn’t sell it to TSMC anymore because they also want to sell to US companies.