TSMC reportedly uncovers Huawei's plot to circumvent US export controls — Chinese tech giant may be using a proxy to produce chips at TSMC

Huawei
(Image credit: Huawei)

Reuters reports that TSMC has notified the U.S. government of a potential violation of export controls involving Huawei. The China-based multinational has attempted to use a proxy to produce its Ascend 910B chips at TSMC. However, the world's largest foundry uncovered the plot and denied its services, reports the Financial Times. TSMC raised the alert itself and stated they are not the focus of any investigation now.

TSMC reported to the U.S. Department of Commerce after a customer ordered a chip resembling Huawei's HiSilicon Ascend 910B for large language model training. The chipmaker produced the precursor to the Ascend 910B before the U.S. imposed sanctions in 2020. Huawei reportedly attempted to deceive TSMC and make its HiSilicon Ascend 910 successor at TSMC using a leading-edge process technology instead of SMIC's trailing 2nd Generation 7nm-class process technology.

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

  • H4unter
    "TSMC reportedly uncovers Huawei's plot to circumvent US export controls"...

    What exactly did TSMC uncover? It's common knowledge that China and every Chinese company is desperately looking to steal anything and everything they can from Taiwan and the west. China/Chinese companies understand that their success relies on theft.
    Reply
  • tooltalk
    TSMC is actually one of the weakest link in the US's sanction against China. There are already hundreds of former TSMC engineers, including Mong Sang Liang, now co-CEO, who are happily employed by SMIC. Contrary to popular belief, many Taiwanese would move to the main land for better compensation.
    Reply
  • Pierce2623
    China: “Dammit!”
    Reply
  • Pierce2623
    tooltalk said:
    TSMC is actually one of the weakest link in the US's sanction against China. There are already hundreds of former TSMC engineers, including Mong Sang Liang, now co-CEO, who are happily employed by SMIC. Contrary to popular belief, many Taiwanese would move to the main land for better compensation.
    The only people who will get significantly better compensation at SMIC than TSMC are those that can solidly prove the ability or knowledge to bring “borrowed” IP along with them.
    Reply