Taiwan is awaiting the U.S. announcement on the China chip waiver extension. According to Taiwan’s Economy Minister Wang Mei-hua on Thursday, the island nation was awaiting the U.S. government’s decision to grant Taiwanese chipmakers a waiver extension to continue supplying U.S. chip equipment to their plants in China.
The Biden administration announced a comprehensive list of export limits in October of last year, greatly extending the scope of its effort to halt Beijing’s scientific and military advancements. Among these rules was one that would prevent China from importing specific semiconductor chips created anywhere in the globe using American equipment.
This week, the South Korean government said that Samsung Electronics (005930. K.S.) and S.K. Hynix (000660. K.S.) would be permitted to provide their plants in China with American semiconductor equipment forever without additional U.S. clearances.
If it would receive the same treatment as Samsung and S.K. Hynix depends on the U.S. government’s declaration, Wang told reporters in Taipei. The largest contract chipmaker in the world, TSMC (2330. T.W.), announced last year that it had received a one-year authorization from the U.S. for its production in Nanjing, China, which produces less-advanced 28-nanometer chips.
“TSMC has already received a one-year waiver, and now we’ll have to see whether the U.S. government will further loosen the measures,” Wang stated.
In response to a request for comment, TSMC remained silent. A waiver of the need for permits to import American semiconductor equipment into China, given to South Korean chipmakers, was anticipated to be extended by the United States.
The world’s major and second-largest memory chip manufacturers, Samsung and S.K. Hynix, welcomed the decision and spent billions of dollars on their chip manufacturing facilities in China.
At its facility in Xian, China, Samsung Electronics produces around 40% of its NAND flash chips, while S.K. Hynix produces 20% of its NAND flash chips in Dalian and 40% of its DRAM chips in Wuxi. As of the end of June, according to statistics from TrendForce, the corporations collectively held close to 70% of the worldwide DRAM industry and 50% of the NAND flash market.
