In response to reports that Huawei is gradually shifting the production of internally designed chips from TSMC to SMIC, TSMC said it does not worry about this and believes that SMIC's market share will expand.
TSMC CEO C. C. Wei said that TSMC provides the best technology and services in all regions and is quite competitive. TSMC works closely with customers to not only lose market share but may expand market share.
Reuters quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that in the face of more restrictions that the United States may offer, Huawei is gradually shifting the production of internally designed chips from TSMC to SMIC.
Earlier reports said that the US government will expand its pressure and adopt stricter rules for companies shipping Huawei, which may reduce the limit of technology derived from the US technology to 10%.
In addition, the United States is considering revising the "Foreign Direct Product Regulations", which requires foreign companies that use U.S. chip manufacturing equipment to obtain U.S. licenses before supplying chips to Huawei to restrict TSMC from manufacturing chips for Huawei.
In order to circumvent US restrictions, one of the sources said that Huawei's chip division Hisilicon began requiring some engineers to design chips for SMIC instead of TSMC at the end of 2019 and said that Huawei has gradually switched to SMIC. Speed up the production process.
In a statement to Reuters, a Huawei spokesperson called this shift "industry practice": "Huawei will carefully consider capacity, technology and delivery issues when choosing a semiconductor manufacturing plant."
In addition, Huawei also stated that South Korean companies, Chinese Taiwanese companies and Chinese mainland companies can all be used as alternative sources.
