Reuters, citing anonymous sources, claims that tensions between the US and Chinese governments have intensified over the past week. The parties exchange mutual accusations about who is to blame for the spread of the coronavirus. Against this background, the US government, apparently, considered the existing sanctions against the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei not tough enough.
The US plans to require companies that use US chip-making equipment to obtain a license before shipping certain chips to Huawei. Recall that the Chinese company has been on the black list of the United States since last year, when a scandal erupted against it. US intelligence agencies have suspected Huawei of embedding spyware "bookmarks" into its products.
The proposal was brought up for discussion on Wednesday, when senior officials from various US agencies discussed the need to regulate the supply of foreign-made goods made using US technology or software.
One source said the new rule would primarily aim to limit Huawei's supply of chips made by Taiwanese contract manufacturer TSMC, which makes HiSilicon Kirin processors, among other things.
It is not yet clear whether the US president will sign the bill, as he opposed such a ban last month. But according to sources, if this happens, not only Huawei and TSMC, but also some American companies will suffer losses. However, a source familiar with the matter assured that the US government has done everything possible to minimize the negative impact on US industry.
U.S. companies such as KLA Corp, Lam Research and Applied Materials could also lose their ability to provide services to Huawei, according to data published last year by China's Everbright Securities.
Huawei declined to comment on the matter. TSMC said that "the company is unable to answer a hypothetical question and also does not discuss its customers." However, it is worth noting that if the ban is indeed adopted, TSMC is unlikely to suffer any significant losses, since the freed up production capacity can easily be filled by other semiconductor forge customers, such as AMD, Nvidia and Apple.
Source: 3dnews.ru
