Reuters reports that TSMC has notified the U.S. government of a potential violation of export controls involving Huawei. The China-based multinational has attempted to use a proxy to produce its Ascend 910B chips at TSMC. However, the world's largest foundry uncovered the plot and denied its services, reports the Financial Times. TSMC raised the alert itself and stated they are not the focus of any investigation now.
TSMC reported to the U.S. Department of Commerce after a customer ordered a chip resembling Huawei's HiSilicon Ascend 910B for large language model training. The chipmaker produced the precursor to the Ascend 910B before the U.S. imposed sanctions in 2020. Huawei reportedly attempted to deceive TSMC and make its HiSilicon Ascend 910 successor at TSMC using a leading-edge process technology instead of SMIC's trailing 2nd Generation 7nm-class process technology.
