U.S. to investigate whether SMIC violated export rules to make 5G chip for Huawei's Mate 60 line

U.S. to investigate whether SMIC violated export rules to make 5G chip for Huawei’s Mate 60 line،

Reuters reports that China's largest foundry, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), may have violated US sanctions by building the 5G Kirin 9000s 7nm application processor (AP) for Huawei. The latter uses the SoC to power the Mate 60 range, the Chinese manufacturer's first 5G phone since 2020. This is the year the United States changed its export rules to prevent any foundry from using American technology to ship cutting-edge chips to Huawei. Before the change in export rules, Huawei was TSMC's second-largest customer after Apple.

Huawei has been forced to obtain a license from the US Department of Commerce that allows it to use Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips to power its flagship P50, Mate 50 and P60 models. However, these chips have been modified so they cannot work with 5G networks. The creation of the Kirin 9000s has been a controversy and mystery and now the Biden administration is claiming that SMIC may have violated US sanctions by producing the Kirin 9000s for Huawei.

Until last August, the Kirin 9000 was Huawei's latest 5G chipset

At a congressional hearing yesterday, Rep. Michael McCaul asked Commerce Department's Alan Estevez whether SMIC violated U.S. export rules by producing the Kirin 9000. Estevez, who oversees export policy , said: “Potentially yes. We will have to evaluate.” He was also asked whether SMIC used American tools to make the chip for Huawei and he replied: “I can't speak to investigations that may or may not be underway.” But we certainly share these concerns. »

SMIC does not have access to an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine that etches very fine circuit patterns onto silicon wafers to help position billions of transistors. The foundry has deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines that are used to produce less advanced chips. Only one company in the world makes these tools and that company, the Dutch company ASML, is banned by the United States from selling its EUV machines at minimum wage.