Microchip, because in Taiwan and Holland Powerchip and Asml are snorting against the USA
Frank Huang of Taiwanese microchip maker Powerchip protests US restrictions on sales to China: geopolitics gets in the way of business. Asml, a European one, also complained for the same reasons…
“US moves on semiconductors are not right or good for us. But it is difficult to be able to say it explicitly ”. This was stated in an interview with La Stampa by Frank Huang, president and CEO of Powerchip, one of the largest Taiwanese microchip manufacturing companies, after the giant TSMC .
US RESTRICTIONS ON MICROCHIP EXPORTS TO CHINA
The "maneuvers" referred to by Huang are the restrictions imposed by the United States on the export to China of technologies for the manufacturing of advanced chips, those crucial for economic-industrial and military development. Washington's action is international: both because two other allied nations participate ( Japan andthe Netherlands , headquarters of important companies in the sector); and because the restrictions affect all devices containing or developed with American technologies, even if manufactured elsewhere.
The semiconductor industry, and in particular the Taiwanese one, is therefore in difficulty. As Huang explains, “the relationship with the US is vital, but China is our main market. We ship more chips there than anywhere else." In short, on the one hand there are political ties and on the other economic ones: governments and companies have been forced to choose.
DID THE US FORCE TSMC?
Huang also says in La Stampa that the United States, which wants to recover microchip manufacturing capacity, has "pressed for a long time" TSMC, effectively forcing it, to open two factories in Arizona: the company's investment amounts to 40 billion dollars . supported with public funds.
“The prices there [of production, ed ] are double compared to here. [Microchips] will be infinitely less profitable than Taiwanese ones,” Huang said, comparing the US and Taiwanese context.
THE POWERCHIP PLANS FOR ABROAD
Powerchip is considering participating in the construction of a smelter (ie a semiconductor factory) in India and is in discussions with Japan on chips for cars. As for Italy, Huang told La Stampa that "it has many engineers"; Europe, however, "lacks a real semiconductor supply chain, which exposes it to many risks".
Like the United States, the European Union also wants to acquire more chip manufacturing capacity through a 42 billion euro stimulus plan, the European Chips Act. The American plan, called the CHIPS Act, is worth a total of 280 billion dollars , of which 52.7 are destined for domestic chip production.
Intel, from the United States, which seemed close to investing in the opening of semiconductor plants in Germany and Italy, could decide to review its plans.
– Read also: Intel, Volkswagen and more: all the companies aiming for US subsidies
THE PROTEST OF ASML
It's not just Huang who complains about American restrictions on the sale of microchips in China: Peter Wennink, CEO of ASML – based in Veldhoven, in the Netherlands, and is Europe's largest technology company – also made similar comments .
"We just have to wait for governments and politicians to keep talking and arrive at a reasonable solution" on export controls, he said a few months ago.
ASML had already been prohibited, since 2019, from selling machines in China that use extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology, a process that allows the production of semiconductors on very small scales). Now it will not be able to export even most deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography systems without first obtaining a specific license from the authorities.
For ASML, China represents a very important sales market, the third largest after Taiwan and South Korea. In 2022, the company had China sales of €2.16 billion, or 14 percent of total revenue, and the country accounted for 18 percent of its order book.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/microchip-restrizioni-stati-uniti-powerchip-asml/ on Mon, 03 Apr 2023 11:50:41 +0000.