Reuters reports that the Commerce Department wrote to TSMC to confirm it was barred from shipping certain advanced 7 nanometres (nm) processor designs to China under US export controls.
TSMC had previously flagged to US authorities that one of the processors it manufactured was found in a Huawei Ascend 910B GPU. TSMC has since halted shipments of certain 7nm designs to Chinese customers.
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The US imposed restrictions on exports of high-performance semiconductors to China over national security concerns, with the likes of Nvidia unable to ship its flagship GPUs to local firms looking to power AI workloads.
The Biden administration has been slowly tightening loopholes to prevent shipments from falling through the cracks, including barring sales of slower versions of existing units.
US officials have, however, delayed the implementation of additional rules, such as exports of chipmaking equipment, with the expected introduction pending since August.
In addition to the US regulations on chip exports, Huawei is listed on the Entity’s list, which imposes strict rules on what companies can ship to them, requiring licenses before shipping goods or technologies.
Huawei has been trying to push its Ascend chip as an alternative to the Nvidia-sized gap in China’s AI hardware market. Any attempt by a chipmaker to obtain a licence to export chips that would support Huawei’s AI efforts would more than likely be shot down.
Huawei’s efforts to take advantage of Nvidia’s absence in China, however, was hampered after several Chinese AI firms using the Ascend chips complained about the hardware’s performance earlier this year, citing issues with its stability issues and slower inter-chip connectivity.
TSMC declined to comment when contacted by Capacity.
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