Recently, the United States passed a “chip bill”, and it is reported that US President Biden will officially sign the bill on August 9, local time. At the same time, the US Congress Pelosi met with Liu Deyin, chairman of TSMC, and then rushed to South Korea with the intention of promoting the “chip bill”.
America’s “Chip Act”
For the chip bill in the United States, electronic enthusiasts.com has paid attention to it many times before. So what is this so-called chip bill? Currently, the bill is called the “Chips and Science Act” (CHIPS-plus, Chips and Science act), formerly known as the “Endless Frontiers Act” proposed in 2020.
When this bill was first proposed, it was relatively positive, mainly to encourage the United States to develop its own industries such as artificial intelligence, high-performance computers and cutting-edge manufacturing. However, with the tension between China and the United States, the bill gradually began to change its flavor, and it ran wildly towards the road of restricting China’s development.
Previous cases, including a ban on the use of TikTok on U.S. government equipment and a ban on government departments from purchasing Chinese drones, are all part of the development of this bill.
Today, after several years of changes in the Chip Act, its core purpose has changed to financial subsidies for semiconductor manufacturers that build factories in the United States. On the surface, this bill seems to be not bad, mainly for the United States to strengthen its own semiconductor manufacturing capabilities.
At the same time, the US bill also provides related companies with 52.7 billion US dollars (about 356 billion yuan) in government subsidies and 24 billion US dollars (about 162.1 billion yuan) in tax credits. Subsidizing companies has almost become a necessary means of supporting industries, but this chip bill in the United States is obviously not that simple.
An important condition attached to the bill is that, once U.S. subsidies are received, certain advanced semiconductor factories cannot be expanded or constructed in certain countries that pose a national security threat to the United States. The stipulated time is 10 years after receiving the subsidy, and the so-called advanced refers to chips with a higher process than 28nm.
Anyone with a discerning eye can see that the US bill restricts the investment and construction of these semiconductor manufacturers in China. Not only that, but in order to continue the crackdown, the bill also provides that the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, in coordination with the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence, can regularly update technologies subject to the ban based on industry input.
In addition to restricting advanced chip production lines, not long ago, the United States even began to ban the sale of flash memory devices with more than 128 layers to China, and its attitude of restricting the development of China’s semiconductors is obvious. Pelosi’s visit to Asia this time, in addition to gaining political capital for herself, also has an important purpose of promoting the US “chip bill” to related companies.
TSMC’s ambiguity and Yin Xiyue’s avoidance
During her visit to Taiwan, China, an important itinerary for Pelosi was to meet Liu Deyin, the current chairman of TSMC. On August 3, Pelosi had a video meeting with Liu Deyin in the hotel, but for the specific situation, TSMC officially stated that it “will not respond.”
Although the specific content of this time is unknown, the high probability is still closely related to the US chip bill.
TSMC is building a $12 billion 5nm fab in Arizona, which is expected to start production in 2024. But what is interesting is that TSMC has always said that because it is difficult to recruit suitable employees, the start time of the factory has been pushed back and forth.
In addition, in an interview with American media on August 1, Liu Deyin said that no one can control SMC by force, because the supply chain of TSMC’s chip factory is sophisticated and complicated. If a conflict breaks out between the two sides, it will cause the United States, Europe and even Japan to stop sending TSMC to TSMC. Supply raw materials. Once this happens, TSMC will be in a state of being unable to operate, and the supply of chips to the mainland will also be interrupted.
At the same time, Liu Deyin also said that the Chinese mainland market is very important to TSMC, and TSMC does not exclude cooperation with mainland China. However, in the end, Liu Deyin changed the subject, expressing the hope that the United States could understand it so that the United States would not regard TSMC as a company “close to mainland China”. Obviously, TSMC still hopes to have both sides between China and the United States.
Compared with TSMC’s ambiguity, South Korea is more direct. After visiting Taiwan, China, Pelosi went straight to South Korea, but surprisingly, South Korea only sent the Speaker of the Congress to hold talks, not even the foreign minister.
As for South Korean President Yin Xiyue, he said that he is currently on vacation, which overlaps with Pelosi’s visit to South Korea, so no meeting between the two parties has been arranged, nor a meeting between Pelosi and other officials of the presidential office.
Pelosi’s cold reception in South Korea also shows that South Korea does not want to stand in the team for the time being. On the one hand, China has strongly opposed the “Chip 4 Alliance” (Chip4), which is jointly participated by South Korea, the United States, Japan and Taiwan. At the same time, more than 60% of South Korea’s exported chips have entered the Chinese market.
At the same time, South Korean companies are also investing heavily in China. For example, Samsung’s memory chip business in Xi’an, China has accumulated a total investment of about 26 billion US dollars. According to relevant data, the Xi’an factory accounts for 43% of Samsung’s global NAND flash memory production capacity and 15% of the world’s total production capacity.
SK Hynix also established a DRAM memory chip factory in Wuxi, but due to obstruction from the United States, SK Hynix could not use ASML’s EUV lithography machine for production in the factory, so there were rumors some time ago that SK Hynix Hynix will move the EUV lithography machine in South Korea to the Wuxi factory to help it upgrade its technology.
In addition, South Korea is more than 40% dependent on imports from China in discrete semiconductor components, memory chips, metal materials and diodes.
Even though Samsung has said that it has invested $17 billion in a new wafer foundry in Texas, SK Hynix recently said that it will invest $22 billion in semiconductors, electric vehicle batteries and green technologies in the United States, including new advanced technologies. Chip packaging factory.
But if they want them to give up the Chinese market directly, they will undoubtedly pick up sesame seeds and lose watermelon. It is not so easy for Pelosi to tie TSMC, Samsung, SK Hynix and other semiconductor manufacturers to the US tank in one fell swoop.