According to Bloomberg, chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has halted semiconductor shipments to a client that possibly illegally shipped chips to Huawei. This comes after reports that TSMC had informed the US government that its chips had appeared in one of Huawei’s AI accelerators. There is no confirmation whether the company was working on Huawei’s behalf or where it is located.
TSMC halted shipments to the unit in mid-October after it noticed the same chips had appeared in Huawei products. Bloomberg’s sources said it had informed the US and Taiwanese governments of this latest development and is investigating the matter further. They requested not to be identified given the sensitive nature of the matter.
Yesterday, Bloomberg and The Financial Times reported that Canadian research firm TechInsights had observed TSMC chips in a Huawei AI accelerator, an apparent violation of US sanctions. This raised the question of how Huawei obtained those chips, with the source being a third-party company being a strong possibility.
In 2020, the US Commerce Department imposed trade sanctions against Huawei, barring the company from obtaining chips made by foreign firms. Earlier this year, the US government further tightened the sanctions by revoking its licenses with Intel and Qualcomm to make chips for its devices.
In a previous statement to the Commerce Department, TSMC denied any working relationship with Huawei since mid-September 2020. TSMC also told Bloomberg that it has not made any chips for Huawei due to the revised sanctions. On its part, Huawei said in a statement yesterday that it has not used any chips it has received from TSMC since the 2020 sanctions came into effect.
Instead of using TSMC, Huawei was reportedly sourcing chips from a local partner, China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) – including the 7-nanometer processor for Huawei smartphones. However, US officials doubted that SMIC could make such chips at a sufficient scale to meet market demand. After CES and ahead of Samsung’s Unpacked, the Engadget crew had a chance to catch its breath this week. But we kept an eye on the deal machine to find out which tech sales are worth your money.
Right now, we’re seeing some great deals from Apple – one on the latest iPad mini and another on the new 15-inch MacBook Air – as well as a first-time discount on the Kindle Colorsoft ereader.
There are some discounts on Bluetooth trackers that will help you keep track of your keys and bags. And Best Buy is still running a promotion giving away three free months of Apple TV+ so you can start watching the recently released season two of Severance. Here are this week’s best tech deals you can still get today.