(Text/Observer.com Yiming) On July 12, according to Taiwan media Juheng.com, the leading chip foundry TSMC has submitted an opinion to the US government, hoping to continue to supply Huawei after the 120-day grace period for the US ban on Huawei expires.
On May 15 this year, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced the latest ban on Huawei. Under the ban, any company that supplies semiconductor products containing U.S. technology to Huawei must first obtain an export license from the U.S. government.
However, there is a 120-day buffer period after the ban is announced. The first 60 days of the buffer period are the deadline for the US government to collect opinions from all parties, and companies can submit opinions as late as July 14. Screenshot of
report under the ban, Huawei and its affiliates will not be able to use US software and technology to design chips, nor can they use US equipment to produce chips; and chip foundries such as TSMC cannot use US semiconductor equipment to produce self-developed chips for Huawei. During the buffer period of
, chip foundry manufacturers such as TSMC have already started production projects in accordance with Huawei's design specifications. As long as these produced chips are delivered to Huawei within 120 days of the new regulations taking effect, they do not need to apply for a license from the United States.
Previously, TSMC Chairman Liu Deyin repeatedly reiterated at the shareholders' meeting that he would strive to ship Huawei. TSMC will continue to observe the purpose of the US ban and the degree of implementation of the ban.
Liu Deyin also said that if TSMC cannot take over Huawei's orders, many customers want to fill the gaps in production capacity and orders, but "We don't want this to happen."
TSMC's 2019 financial report shows that last year Huawei contributed about 36.4 billion yuan in revenue to TSMC, an increase of nearly 80%. TSMC's revenue share also increased significantly from 8% to 14%, second only to Apple's revenue contribution. In 2019, Apple's revenue contribution to TSMC reached 58.9 billion yuan, accounting for 23% of TSMC's revenue.
In addition, industry reports said that Qualcomm has also submitted an application to the US government to continue supplying to Huawei, hoping to resume supply to Huawei. A foreign investment report also shows that Qualcomm is continuing to communicate with the US government and has increased its confidence in resuming Huawei shipments.
Previously, American semiconductor chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm could no longer supply Huawei because they contained more than 25% of American technology, forcing the latter to use Japanese, Korean, European and domestic chips to replace them.
and Huawei has also increased its procurement of third-party non-American chips. There is news in the industry that Huawei's purchase orders for MediaTek chips have increased by 300%.
Some analysts believe that although TSMC wants to continue to obtain Huawei chip orders, it is difficult for TSMC to obtain approval license immediately. Even if it is possible to recover, it will be partial recovery, such as restricting the use of 5nm advanced processes.
At present, many chip giants have begun to compete for TSMC's 5nm production capacity. On June 22, according to foreign media reports, Qualcomm has handed over its most advanced Snapdragon 875 mobile phone chip order to TSMC South Co., Ltd., and also includes X60 5G baseband orders.
As orders increase, TSMC has quickly increased the monthly output of 5nm chips at Nanke 18 Factory to about 60,000 pieces, which has filled the production capacity of some TSMC factories.
The United States' political suppression of Chinese companies such as Huawei is constantly increasing. On July 9, Reuters cited people familiar with the matter as saying that the Trump administration is currently fully promoting a procurement ban on Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE. Once finalized, it will take effect on August 13 this year. At that time, any company that provides products or services to the White House will be prohibited from using the products of five Chinese companies, Huawei, Hikvision, Hikvision, Dahua, Hynutta and ZTE.
However, organizations such as the American Professional Services Commission (PSC) and the American Defense Industry Association (NDA) have jumped out to call for the extension of the ban. Both believe that the current situation is not the time to "ban" Chinese companies such as Huawei, but should pay more attention to how the United States recovers from the COVID-19 crisis. The Defense Industry Association believes that US companies need more buffering time and said that the ban on Chinese companies such as Huawei should be postponed for at least one year.
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