The latest news at noon today, according to Nikkei News, TSMC has stopped receiving new orders from Huawei.
According to Japanese media reports, several sources said that TSMC has suspended receiving new orders from Huawei in response to the latest US export controls and tightening restrictions on Huawei’s supply of key chips.
On May 15, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that it would strictly restrict Huawei’s use of U.S. technology, software design and manufacturing of semiconductor chips. Any related actions must be approved in advance to protect U.S. national security and cut off Huawei’s way of attempting to break away from U.S. export control.
This means that the United States has tried to cut off all external sources of Huawei chips from design to manufacturing, and a developed country has never taken such harsh measures against a company in history.
Supply chain news said that TSMC received an order of 700 million US dollars from Huawei. According to the news, TSMC’s new order from Huawei will directly accelerate the production of Kirin 1100. From the previous list of TSMC’s customers, TSMC only produces 5nm chips for two companies in 2020, namely Apple and Huawei Hisilicon. The former is A14 and A14X processors, and Huawei HiSilicon is Kirin 1000 and network processors.
Sources told the Nikkei Asian Review that since the end of last year, Huawei has been preparing for this move in the United States, including preparing chips related to network equipment for a year to do preparation for key telecommunications equipment and carrier business.
Although it has stopped receiving new orders from Huawei, the orders that Huawei has previously received from TSMC will not be completely affected. The source said that orders that have already entered the production process and Huawei orders that TSMC received earlier will not be affected if they can be shipped before mid-September.
Regarding the outbreak of Huawei’s orders, TSMC said that the relevant reports are only market rumors.
Informed sources said that for TSMC to stop ordering Huawei is a difficult decision. Huawei is the second largest customer of TSMC, but TSMC must also comply with US regulations.
