Taiwan minister says TSMC has received China chip waiver extension from US

TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC has received from the United States a waiver extension to supply U.S. chip equipment to the company’s factories in China, Taiwan Economy Minister Wang Mei-hua said on Friday.

Last October, the Biden administration published a sweeping set of export controls, including a measure to cut off China from certain semiconductor chips made anywhere in the world with U.S. tools, vastly expanding the reach of a bid to slow Beijing’s technological and military advances.

South Korea’s government said this week that Samsung Electronics (KS:) and SK Hynix will be allowed to supply U.S. chip equipment to their China factories indefinitely without separate U.S. approvals.

TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said last year it had been granted a one-year authorisation by the United States that covered its factory in Nanjing, China, that makes less-advanced 28 nanometre chips.

Wang told reporters that it was her understanding the waiver extension had been extended for TSMC too, though she did not give details.

Her ministry referred further questions to TSMC, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company is in its quiet period ahead of its third-quarter earnings release next Thursday.