Amid a fierce trade war with the US, China's General Administration of Customs has changed its rules of how the origin of imported chips must be classified, now deeming that the wafer fabrication location should be counted as the origin of chips shipped to the country. This rule exempts products from AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Intel, and other chipmakers who outsource wafer fabrication to Taiwanese companies from the punitive 125% tariff China now imposes on products from the U.S. However, this badly hurts Intel, Global Foundries, Texas Instruments, and chip designers who produce chips in America.
Today, the China Semiconductor Industry Association published an urgent notice regarding the rules for determining the 'country of origin' of semiconductor products shipped to China. As it turns out, the location where the wafer was processed is deemed the 'country of origin,' no matter where the chip was developed or packaged, according to a CSIA document published in WeChat and republished by various analysts. The rule applies to both packaged and unpackaged semiconductors.
