Huawei and SMIC are now officially banned from importing chips from Taiwan. The ban is comprehensive and also involves subsidiaries of both entities that were found to be using them to circumvent import orders imposed by the United States since 2019.
Also included in the ban this time is the import of chiplets manufactured by TSMC. Last year, TSMC-made chiplets were found in the Huawei Ascend 910B chip manufactured by Huawei. As a result, TSMC was fined $1 billion by the US Department of Commerce. The chiplets were sold to the company Sophgo, which then sent them to Huawei to bypass technological barriers imposed by the United States.
Huawei was already banned from buying processing chips with US technology such as those manufactured by Qualcomm. At the same time, they were forced to stop producing Kirin chips for several years because they were no longer allowed to use TSMC's foundry. But in 2023, the Kirin 9000s was suddenly launched with the help of SMIC using modified old equipment.