The Commerce Department sent a letter to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company ordering it to stop shipments of advanced semiconductors to certain Chinese customers, including 7 nanometer chips or others of “more advanced designs,” Reuters reported Nov. 9. The letter specifically orders TSMC to stop shipments, beginning Nov. 11, destined for Chinese customers of chips that power artificial intelligence accelerator and graphics processing units, the report said.
The U.S. wants to remove more export barriers faced by the commercial space industry even after announcing a set of space-related export control reforms in October, a senior official said this week, adding that the effort could continue under the incoming Trump administration.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, urged the Commerce Department Nov. 5 to investigate whether China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) violated U.S. export controls.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is being asked to do more to restrict the export of dual-use items but isn’t getting a commensurate increase in funding and personnel, a technology policy expert said last week.
Banks that choose not to follow a set of export compliance best practices recently issued by the Bureau of Industry and Security may be leaving themselves “wide open” to possible penalties under U.S. export regulations, a senior BIS official said, especially if they don’t have other compliance safeguards in place.
The Bureau of Industry and Security fined multinational chip maker GlobalFoundries $500,000 after it illegally exported semiconductor wafers to a Entity Listed firm with ties to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), China’s flagship chip manufacturing company.
The U.S. this week unveiled new trade and financial restrictions against people and companies across more than 17 countries for helping Russia evade sanctions or for supporting the country’s military, adding nearly 400 to the Treasury Department’s sanctions list and more than 40 to the Commerce Department’s Entity List. Another move by Commerce will tighten existing controls on nearly 50 entities that it said are procuring U.S.-branded microelectronics for Russia.
A State Department proposal to revise the definition of defense services could cover an overly broad set of activities and likely exacerbate the already lengthy processing times for commodity jurisdiction requests and export license applications, defense industry groups and firms said in public comments to the agency released last week.
The Commerce Department declined to say whether it’s investigating Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company for a possible breach of export controls against Huawei but is aware of public reporting about the issue, an agency spokesperson said Oct. 24.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company recently spoke with Commerce Department about a possible export control issue involving one of its advanced chips, a company spokepserson said. TSMC "proactively communicated with the US Commerce Department regarding the matter," the person said Oct. 23. "We are not aware of TSMC being the subject of any investigation at this time."