- The U.S. approved an annual licence for TSMC to import chipmaking equipment for its Nanjing plant, keeping operations running
- Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix also received licences after U.S. export exemptions expired
- TSMC’s Nanjing site makes mature-node chips and accounted for about 2.4% of revenue in 2024
The government's export license for the overseas supply of raw materials for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has been approved by the U.S. government. The license will allow the company to use the imported American chipmaking equipment at its Nanjing, China facility.
The license was confirmed by the Company, stating that it will let the company’s activities and customer deliveries continue without interruption.
The approval followed the expiration of the first granted exemptions to Asian chipmakers that were valid until the end of 2025.
Under those exemptions, which were called validated end-user status, companies like TSMC, Samsung Electronics, and SK Hynix were granted access to U.S. semiconductor-related equipment for their China-based operations despite the U.S. export controls. These controls are part of a larger U.S. strategy aimed at cutting off China’s access to state-of-the-art semiconductor technology.
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All the exemptions were terminated at the end of December 2023, meaning that individual export licenses had to be granted to the affected companies if they wanted to continue operating until 2026.
In a statement, TSMC stated, “The U.S. Department of Commerce has granted TSMC Nanjing an annual export license that allows U.S. export-controlled items to be supplied to TSMC Nanjing without the need for individual vendor licenses”.
TSMC claimed that the licence would be a means to provide manufacturing stability and reliability in terms of supply to the customers. The Nanjing plant is mainly engaged in the production of 16-nanometre chips and other mature-node chips and not the company’s most advanced semiconductors.
TSMC has another wafer fabrication plant in Shanghai. The Nanjing site represented approximately 2.4% of the total revenue of the company is stated in the 2024 annual report.