US Government Could Stop Chip Shipments from TSMC to Huawei

[AleksandarK]

US Government, precisely the Trump administration, is considering placing a ban on chip export from TSMC to Huawei. With Huawei being in the middle between the US and China fight for global technology dominance, the Trump administration is seeking to limit the progress of foreign forces trying to match or beat US technology. There were previous efforts by the US government to influence Huawei's fate, with them claiming that Huawei 5G equipment is capable of supplying China with intelligence, meaning that China tries to spy on US citizens. While those claims were later disregarded by Huawei, the Trump administration managed to do some damage to the face of the company.

The TSMC representative who spoke to Reuters about the potential ban said that the company (TSMC) does not answer hypothetical questions and that they don't talk about their customers. To achieve more control over the China semiconductor manufacturing, the US government plans to place a licensing model on all of their US-made semiconductor equipment, meaning that all the production lines are possibly in danger if the US doesn't approve shipments of their machines to other countries.


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[TheinsanegamerN]

Wait, am I missing something? TSMC is Taiwanese, and outside of a single subsidiary in washington state, all their fabs are outside the US. So how exactly does the US plan on enforcing this, and why should TSMC listen to them? TSMC could just dump US constracts instead. Who are they going to go to, after all? Intel has 0 capacity remaining, GF isnt truste,d and other companies have long closed up shop or dont make anything below 45nm.

As an aside, Of hource Hauwei would claim they are innocent, how many convicted criminals still claim they are innocent? The chinese have a long history of spying on other countries, as do many of their citizens living in other countries. not much of a stretch to say the chinese phones are collecting data for china, just like US phones collect data for the US.

 

[Oberon]

Wait, am I missing something? TSMC is Taiwanese, and outside of a single subsidiary in washington state, all their fabs are outside the US. So how exactly does the US plan on enforcing this, and why should TSMC listen to them?

Last sentence in the article.

To achieve more control over the China semiconductor manufacturing, the US government plans to place a licensing model on all of their US-made semiconductor equipment, meaning that all the production lines are possibly in danger if the US doesn't approve shipments of their machines to other countries.

 

[micropage7]

i dunno lately i more believe that it's all about trade war, not only about Huawei that spy on their customer

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Last sentence in the article.

"the US government plans to place a licensing model on all of their US-made semiconductor equipment "

The fabs are not in the US. That's my question. Outside of the washington sub, there ISNT any "US made semiconductor equipment", is there? What equipment would TSMC be buying from the US instead of making themselves or being able to source from other countries?

 

[R0H1T]

Wait, am I missing something? TSMC is Taiwanese, and outside of a single subsidiary in washington state, all their fabs are outside the US. So how exactly does the US plan on enforcing this, and why should TSMC listen to them? TSMC could just dump US constracts instead. Who are they going to go to, after all? Intel has 0 capacity remaining, GF isnt truste,d and other companies have long closed up shop or dont make anything below 45nm.

As an aside, Of hource Hauwei would claim they are innocent, how many convicted criminals still claim they are innocent? The chinese have a long history of spying on other countries, as do many of their citizens living in other countries. not much of a stretch to say the chinese phones are collecting data for china, just like US phones collect data for the US.

They can't & if they try you might as well say hello to WW III, at least in terms of full blown trade wars.

For all the bluster about Huawei, what the heck did they do to stop them from operating & profiting using essential US tech including Android ~ the answer is nothing, because there's only so many levers they can pull before CCP hits them hard.

Huawei is in fact, by all accounts TSMC's biggest client at least in terms of volumes. So just like the many eyeball grabbing headlines before this, the Huawei "ban" will whimper away yet again

 

[AleksandarK]

"the US government plans to place a licensing model on all of their US-made semiconductor equipment "

The fabs are not in the US. That's my question. Outside of the washington sub, there ISNT any "US made semiconductor equipment", is there? What equipment would TSMC be buying from the US instead of making themselves or being able to source from other countries?

KLA corporation, Lam Research, and Applied Materials.

 

[R0H1T]

KLA corporation, Lam Research, and Applied Materials.

We've heard bigger names like Intel, MS, Google & possibly Apple(?) & nothing happened back then, nothing will happen here either

 

[Oberon]

"the US government plans to place a licensing model on all of their US-made semiconductor equipment "

The fabs are not in the US. That's my question. Outside of the washington sub, there ISNT any "US made semiconductor equipment", is there? What equipment would TSMC be buying from the US instead of making themselves or being able to source from other countries?

A lot of equipment used at various points in semiconductor fabrication is provided by either a single company (e.g. ASML and their EUV lithography machines, though they are based in the Netherlands) or just a few, and you don't only have to worried about the completed product; the US could also place export restrictions on components required for the construction of those products. The supply chain for all of these things is quite narrow and it probably wouldn't be hard for the US to effectively stop TSMC from upgrading/expanding their existing manufacturing.

 

[R0H1T]

They'd also have to sanction the UK & Taiwan (based entities) to make this work, good luck with that. The equipment used by TSMC sill be shared for products made by Apple, Huawei, QC, AMD among others. You ban just Huawei & see what the ripple effects are. I'm surprised how the last year (or 3) has taught nothing to the masses

 

[delshay]

Wait, am I missing something? TSMC is Taiwanese, and outside of a single subsidiary in washington state, all their fabs are outside the US. So how exactly does the US plan on enforcing this, and why should TSMC listen to them? TSMC could just dump US constracts instead. Who are they going to go to, after all? Intel has 0 capacity remaining, GF isnt truste,d and other companies have long closed up shop or dont make anything below 45nm.

As an aside, Of hource Hauwei would claim they are innocent, how many convicted criminals still claim they are innocent? The chinese have a long history of spying on other countries, as do many of their citizens living in other countries. not much of a stretch to say the chinese phones are collecting data for china, just like US phones collect data for the US.

There's Samsung who are not that far behind.

 

[prtskg]

i dunno lately i more believe that it's all about trade war, not only about Huawei that spy on their customer

It is trade war. The effect can already be seen as decrease in rate of gdp growth on global scale. Brexit and slow down of China and India (2 of the fastest growing large economies) didn't help either.

World Economic Outlook Update, July 2019: Still Sluggish Global Growth

Global growth remains subdued. Global growth is forecast at 3.2 percent in 2019, picking up to 3.5 percent in 2020 (0.1 percentage point lower than in the April WEO projections for both years). GDP releases so far this year, together with generally softening inflation, point to...

www.imf.org

 

[repman244]

The "US Government" should first stop itself.

 

[etayorius]

The US "invites" all countries to play their capitalism game, but don't you dare to beat them at their own game...

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Huawei equipment is used to spy on/arrest protestors as far back as Iran in 2009.

U.S. accuses Huawei of stealing trade secrets, assisting Iran

U.S. prosecutors on Thursday accused Huawei of stealing trade secrets and helping Iran track protesters in its latest indictment against the Chinese company, escalating the U.S. battle with the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker.

www.reuters.com

This is why everyone in China has smartphones: it's how China controls their population stopping public discontent before it starts. USA does not want similar police states being established elsewhere where saying anything against the government will result in near immediate arrest and reeducation.

 

[Steevo]

The US "invites" all countries to play their capitalism game, but don't you dare to beat them at their own game...

Is it fair if the benefit comes from slave labor in China?

Capitalism isn't a game, but a idea that has raised more people out if poverty than any other "game" that's been tried.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Is it fair if the benefit comes from slave labor in China?

Capitalism isn't a game, but a idea that has raised more people out if poverty than any other "game" that's been tried.

Well said. What could be stated further is that Capitalism in partnership with a democracy or republic has raised more people out of impoverishment than any other economic model.

 

[DrCR]

I thought this transcended the 'Trump administration' i.e. Nancy Pelosi speaking up re Huawei?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Pretty much the entire US government has spoken out against Huawei. I think there's more information they have about what Huawei has done that remains classified. Enabling a techno-police state is bad enough as is.

 

[Flanker]

Time to grab popcorn and see what happens next

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

precisely the Trump administration

adding more finger pointing just made this more of a political article, quite unnecessary.

 

[Vayra86]

Pretty much the entire US government has spoken out against Huawei. I think there's more information they have about what Huawei has done that remains classified. Enabling a techno-police state is bad enough as is.

The Huawei threat is real, you don't need to be hyper intelligent to consider this at all. Its not like China has our best interests at heart. Whether you do or don't question the US has our best interests at heart is another, and separate question IMO. This really is about choosing what camp you belong to, and unfortunately there is no neutral ground unless you create one. I do hope the EU proceeds to do exactly that...

Well said. What could be stated further is that Capitalism in partnership with a democracy or republic has raised more people out of impoverishment than any other economic model.

While true, one could argue the current state of capitalism prompts a serious evaluation and change. Shit's getting out of hand. Multinationals are exceeding the power of governments, and the way wealth is divided is actually taking a step back rather than forward. Middle class is vanishing fast towards both ends of the spectrum.

 

[Diverge]

US can pressure them because so many US companies use their fabs. All that lost business would cripple them. US could open/build their own fabs if they needed to. But they'd rather other countries pollute their land. They shut down or sold off fabs because of environmental restrictions...

 

[remixedcat]

huawei has been stealing from cisco for decades. Hope this kills that beast. huawei has always been shady af. Nobody wanted to do anything bad to them till the Trump admin.

Also TSMC,GF,etc have more fabs than everyone thinks. They are just not listed and inconspicous for security precautions. You might even have one near you and not know it. datacenters do that as well.