Huawei dealt another massive blow as US bans TSMC from shipping chips to them
With Huawei being on the US Entity List, it essentially prevents US companies from doing business with them, and vice versa. This includes purchasing and using chips from the likes of Qualcomm. But hey, that’s not an issue, right? After all Huawei has been making and using its own chipsets for a while now.
Unfortunately, that could now pose a problem as well. Thanks to a new ruling by the US government, non-US chipmakers who use American chipmaking equipment, software, or intellectual property will now have to apply for a license before shipping to Huawei, and that includes the likes of TSMC.
For those unfamiliar, TSMC is a semiconductor company from Taiwan. The company is one of the biggest chipmakers in the world and has helped companies such as Apple produce chipsets for the iPhone and iPad. They were also helping Huawei manufacture their Kirin chipsets. According to a person familiar with the matter:
“TSMC has stopped taking new orders from Huawei after the new rule change was announced to fully comply with the latest export control regulation. But those already in production and those orders which TSMC took before the new ban are not impacted and could continue to proceed if those chips could be shipped before mid-September.”
Huawei to date has managed to find workarounds for hardware and software made by US companies, but this latest ruling will no doubt make it even harder for the company to keep doing business in the future.
Source: Nikkei Asian Review