TSMC Halts Silicon Foundry Production in China... Measure to Prepare for US Regulations

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunwoo Lee] Taiwan's TSMC, the world's largest semiconductor foundry (contract manufacturing) company, is reportedly deciding to halt advanced silicon contract manufacturing supplied to Chinese companies. This is interpreted as a measure to comply with U.S. government export regulations.

On the 23rd (local time), Bloomberg News, citing sources familiar with TSMC, reported, "TSMC has decided to stop advanced silicon contract manufacturing for Chinese AI semiconductor company Birentechnology in order to comply with U.S. export controls on China."

Silicon is considered a core material for semiconductors. Although TSMC has not yet concluded whether Birentechnology's products fall under U.S. export restrictions, it is known to have decided to suspend its product supply for the time being.

Earlier, on the 7th, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced measures effectively banning the export of 18nm (nanometer, one billionth of a meter) or smaller DRAM, 128-layer or higher NAND flash to China by U.S. companies, as well as semiconductor equipment exports to Chinese companies producing logic chips of 14nm or smaller.

Bloomberg News reported that TSMC's decision is related to information that Birentechnology's AI semiconductors have performance competitive with NVIDIA's AI semiconductor 'A100,' a U.S. semiconductor company. The A100 is an AI graphics processing unit (GPU) semiconductor released in 2020 and is used in data centers to perform complex AI calculations.

Birentechnology previously unveiled its main products 'BR 100' and 'BR 104,' which are evaluated to have performance similar to graphics chips from U.S. semiconductor companies such as NVIDIA and AMD. Bloomberg also reported that U.S. authorities had previously banned the export of semiconductors like the A100 to China, citing risks of their use by the Chinese military.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.