News Huawei reportedly acquired two million Ascend 910 AI chips from TSMC last year through shell companies

[Admin]

According to CSIS, Huawei has millions of AI chips from SMIC despite yield problems.

Huawei reportedly acquired two million Ascend 910 AI chips from TSMC last year through shell companies : Read more

 

[Pierce2623]

If TSMC doesn’t want your business, it’s pretty slimy to sneak if in like that. I used to claim that Huawei shouldn’t be treated as a direct proxy of the CCP, but they’ve clearly proven me wrong with this behavior.

 

[Marlin1975]

I don't get how this works? TSMC had to be in on this at least a little for it to work.

Company A can't buy custom designed chips but company B comes along and wants to make the exact same chips that would be protected by company A. So TSMC does not see an issue and just makes them?
Even if they thought they were licensed they would pick the phone up and make a few calls and run it past their legal office.

Just does not pass the sniff test.

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

If TSMC doesn’t want your business, it’s pretty slimy to sneak if in like that. I used to claim that Huawei shouldn’t be treated as a direct proxy of the CCP, but they’ve clearly proven me wrong with this behavior.

I don't think TSMC doesn't want their business, but that they have no choice but to comply with US sanctions against Huawei. If TSMC could take Huawei's money without upsetting the US, they would gladly do so.

 

[phead128]

Greg Allen is an MBA think-tanker with CSIS. He is one of the biggest proponents of export controls on China, which has failed spectacularly. His target audience is the dinosaurs in Congress who couldn't tell you the difference between an CPU and GPU. I would take what Greg Allen he says with a grain of salt.

 

[George³]

I don't understand. Huawei acquired chips that were their own development and probably ordered for TSMC to burn in wafer before the embargo on this lithography process took effect. Where is the problem?

 

[phead128]

I don't understand. Huawei acquired chips that were their own development and probably ordered for TSMC to burn in wafer before the embargo on this lithography process took effect. Where is the problem?

The question is how an MBA think-tanker who has "industry sources" knows more about sanction violations than even Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and Department of Commerce (DOC) and even the CIA/NSA/FBI ??

 

[AkroZ]

I don't understand. Huawei acquired chips that were their own development and probably ordered for TSMC to burn in wafer before the embargo on this lithography process took effect. Where is the problem?

Ascend 910C begin production in 2024, the embargo was instaured in 2019.
TSMC use many IP from USA, US law said they can restrain products worldwide when they use at least 25% US technologies.
To make a Ascend 910C with TSMC, globally around 40-50% american technologies are used.
Huawei invest heavily to reduce the dependencies on US technologies, but they are nowere near to produce "legally" Ascend 910C.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Won't make much difference soon. After Chump's capitulation to Putin, China will now certainly invade Taiwan. They are already doing war drills and realise Chump won't give two shits.

 

[bit_user]

I don't get how this works? TSMC had to be in on this at least a little for it to work.

Company A can't buy custom designed chips but company B comes along and wants to make the exact same chips that would be protected by company A. So TSMC does not see an issue and just makes them?

How would TSMC know what chip they're making? They're not in the business of reverse-engineering their customers' IP. By the time they get the design, it's not much more than a set of masks. Sure, you can figure out certain incredibly basic things about it, but probably nothing that's a dead giveaway. Given how many chips they make for how many different customers, many of which are not sold to the general public, I don't find this too surprising.

The main way you probably figure out what you're making is if you can require information about their downstream use, and then you actually do your own independent checks to see if the story is plausible and if that's where they ended up going. That costs money and takes personnel.

 

[tooltalk]

Greg Allen is an MBA think-tanker with CSIS. He is one of the biggest proponents of export controls on China, which has failed spectacularly. His target audience is the dinosaurs in Congress who couldn't tell you the difference between an CPU and GPU. I would take what Greg Allen he says with a grain of salt.

What's not working in so-called "targeted sanction" against China vs. country-wide sanction that many CCP shills oppose.

 

[Pierce2623]

I don't get how this works? TSMC had to be in on this at least a little for it to work.

Company A can't buy custom designed chips but company B comes along and wants to make the exact same chips that would be protected by company A. So TSMC does not see an issue and just makes them?
Even if they thought they were licensed they would pick the phone up and make a few calls and run it past their legal office.

Just does not pass the sniff test.

I don’t think it’s TSMC’s responsibility to examine every design to make sure they don’t I fring on others’ IP. That’s the responsibility of the people designing the chips. Small Asian companies are getting matrix math chips fabbed like crazy right now and TSMC would lose a ton of money skipping on small batch orders paying 2-3x the per-wafer price of their big customers. They don’t heavily examine anything coming in for n7 these days anyways….

 

[nivagh]

How would TSMC know what chip they're making? They're not in the business of reverse-engineering their customers' IP. By the time they get the design, it's not much more than a set of masks. Sure, you can figure out certain incredibly basic things about it, but probably nothing that's a dead giveaway. Given how many chips they make for how many different customers, many of which are not sold to the general public, I don't find this too surprising.

The main way you probably figure out what you're making is if you can require information about their downstream use, and then you actually do your own independent checks to see if the story is plausible and if that's where they ended up going. That costs money and takes personnel.

Indeed NOT reverse engineering its customers' designs, is of critical importance to being trustworthy as an outsourced fab.

 

[George³]

Ascend 910C begin production in 2024, the embargo was instaured in 2019.
TSMC use many IP from USA, US law said they can restrain products worldwide when they use at least 25% US technologies.
To make a Ascend 910C with TSMC, globally around 40-50% american technologies are used.
Huawei invest heavily to reduce the dependencies on US technologies, but they are nowere near to produce "legally" Ascend 910C.

The Ascend 910 is launched in 2019. I think that developing phase is earlier. The deals for production for 910 and future versions I think that is before embargo and it's are for years ahead.

 

[Pierce2623]

Indeed NOT reverse engineering its customers' designs, is of critical importance to being trustworthy as an outsourced fab. reverse engineering is so

The Ascend 910 is launched in 2019. I think that developing phase is earlier. The deals for production for 910 and future versions I think that is before embargo and it's are for years ahead.

You don’t seem to realize that the 910c is a newer model with higher compute performance and higher bandwidth compared to the 910 or 910B. It’s the equivalent of a 3090, 4090 and 5090 (not in numbers or performance but as in they’re different generations of products at the same tier)