After TSMC obtained exemption from the US chip equipment, a strange phenomenon occurred

Four years ago, the United States used the excuse of "information security" to suppress Huawei and restricted chip manufacturers from producing Kirin chips for Huawei. Afterwards, the crackdown by the Americans gradually escalated, from cracking down on Huawei to cracking down on Chinese enterprises. Later, the Americans found that this was not thorough enough and began to crack down on overseas enterprises operating in mainland China, thereby blocking the development of China's chip industry.

The two Korean companies, Samsung and SK Hynix, bear the brunt. These two companies have built several storage chip factories in mainland China, which supply a large number of storage chips to Samsung and SK Hynix, making them the world's largest production base for storage chips.

Due to the suppression of China's chip industry by the United States, Samsung and SK Hynix are also implicated. The United States requires these two companies to use American equipment and technology within a limited period of time, but after the deadline expires, Samsung and SK Hynix cannot use American related technology and equipment in factories built in mainland China.

For this reason, Samsung and SK Hynix lobbied with relevant departments in South Korea to negotiate with the United States and obtain more deadlines. Recently, relevant US departments officially announced that Samsung and SK Hynix will receive an "indefinite extension exemption" from the US for providing chip equipment to mainland factories.

In addition to Samsung and SK Hynix, the United States has also granted a one-year exemption to TSMC in China. Although the United States only granted TSMC a one-year exemption period, its subsequent actions towards TSMC were surprising.

It is reported that relevant departments in the United States have stated that TSMC can obtain an indefinite exemption by completing the "authenticated end user" authorization program.

Since the US has already granted TSMC a one-year exemption period, why do they request TSMC to apply for an indefinite exemption? Why bother giving unlimited exemptions like Samsung and SK Hynix? I think there are several points to address regarding this issue.

Firstly, Samsung and SK Hynix know how to argue based on reason, while TSMC is too honest.All along, Korean companies have been relatively united, and they will do everything possible to solve things that are not conducive to them. If they cannot solve it themselves, Korean companies will provide feedback to their superior departments in order to gain their support.

In this situation, the Americans also have to consider the emotions of their peers, so many times they will also accommodate Korean companies and ultimately agree to their demands.

Compared to Korean companies, TSMC appears somewhat obedient. The Americans requested TSMC to build a wafer factory in Arizona, and TSMC invested billions of dollars to build a factory in the United States.

Finally, TSMC found that the cost of building a factory in the United States exceeded its budget, and the subsidies promised by the Americans were not in place. The construction environment was also relatively harsh, which made TSMC suffer unbearably.

From this, it can be seen that TSMC was still too honest and was ultimately treated differently by the Americans.

Secondly, the market positioning of TSMC, Samsung, and SK Hynix is different,As is well known, TSMC is the world's largest, most advanced technology, and cutting-edge chip OEM manufacturer. In terms of related technology and equipment, TSMC relies more on the United States than Samsung and SK Hynix.

In addition, TSMC OEM produces processor chips with more advanced technology and urgent market demand, while Samsung and SK Hynix produce ordinary storage chips. Due to different market positioning, the US naturally tends to be more conservative in exempting TSMC.

Technological competition was originally a fair and just competition, but due to the technological hegemony of the United States, technological competition is full of repression and disputes. It is obvious that the American approach did not achieve the expected results, but instead accelerated the development speed of China's chip industry.

For example, the Huawei Mate60 series mobile phone launched by Huawei at the end of August is equipped with Huawei's self-developed and self-produced Kirin 9000S chip, which indicates that China has achieved breakthroughs in chip production technology and equipment, gradually getting rid of the bottleneck situation.

Here, we hope that mainland companies such as TSMC and Huawei will move towards each other and contribute to the vigorous development of China's chip industry.