The chip war rages on and is now directly affecting Biren Technology, a China-based semiconductor startup.
According to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), it has decided to stop the manufacture of advanced chips for the firm, based in Shanghai, to comply with US regulations that prevent companies from acquiring certain components or material developed with US technology.
At the beginning of October, Joe Biden announced a blockade of China where he put a special focus on technology and highly specialized technological talent. With this, the US government seeks to stop the Asian country on its way to technological self-sufficiency.
Although Biren had managed to evade this norm, TSMC decided to make this suspension.
“Biren has a chip just below the threshold and so TSMC can still make the chip,” noted Bloomberg, but the chip company has decided to curb production of these high-spatiality chips.
The situation puts Biren at a disadvantage compared to AMD or NVIDIA. The company launched three years ago and just a few months ago, in the summer, it introduced a new GPU, the BR100, capable of rivaling NVIDIA’s most powerful ones and using TSMC’s 7nm manufacturing process.
Geopolitics and technology
In addition to this new position on the part of the Taiwanese chip company, a few weeks ago the possibility of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan caused TSMC to declare about the negative impact that could come in the global semiconductor industry.
Mark Liu, president of TSMC, spoke of the consequences that the military operation would have on his industry. If China were to invade Taiwan, he said, the world’s most advanced chip factory “would not be operational” as it relies on global supply chains.
TSMC is the leading company in the semiconductor industry, with more than 50% of the global chip casting market, and has significant relationships with US companies such as Qualcomm and Apple, for which it manufactures the A and M series of chips. , found on iPhones as well as your latest computers and tablets.
