Huawei has been considered a national security threat to the U.S. and was originally placed on the Commerce Department’s entity list in 2019. This prevents the manufacturer from obtaining supplies from U.S. companies including Google. At one time, Huawei was TSMC’s second biggest customer. Still, once the sanctions took effect, the firm was forced to rely on older processors that the Commerce Department allowed the San Diego-based fabless chip designer to ship to Huawei. These chips also had to be tweaked to prevent them from working with 5G networks.
Joe Biden is being blamed by a Senator for not monitoring TSMC’s dealings with Huawei. | Image Credit-NorthEastern
But Huawei stunned the industry last year by working with China’s largest foundry, SMIC, to build the Kirin 9000s processor which was used to power the Mate 60 series. The chip supports 5G allowing the Mate 60 line to offer 5G connectivity for a Huawei flagship phone for the first time since 2020’s Mate 40 series. U.S. lawmakers are worried that Huawei might be able to build cutting-edge processors even though SMIC and other foundries in the country do not have the tools to produce chips as advanced as those made by TSMC and Samsung Foundry.
What Senator Warner is concerned about is the possibility that TSMC built chips for an intermediary that had a deal with Huawei. This would help Huawei get around the U.S. restrictions to obtain chips that it cannot obtain itself.