TSMC has reportedly suspended shipments to China-based chip designer Sophgo amid the Department of Commerce’s ongoing investigation into a possible Huawei-linked sanctions violation.
According to Reuters, Sophgo had ordered chips from TSMC that matched the one found on Huawei's Ascend 910B. Up until this month, TSMC is said to have shipped “hundreds of thousands of chips” to the company.
It follows the revelation that TSMC alerted the US government to the discovery and is therefore not the focus of the US government probe, with previous reports claiming that there was no suggestion that TSMC wilfully or maliciously violated US sanctions.
Sophgo was founded by Micree Zhan in 2019, who - per a report in The Information - indirectly owns more than 20 percent of Sophgo. Zhan is also the co-founder and chair of Bitmain, the largest Bitcoin ASIC designer and a provider of water-cooled crypto mining systems.
In a statement posted to its website following the reports, Sophgo said that the Department of Commerce investigation was not related to the company and it has “never been engaged in any direct or indirect business relationship with Huawei.”
It further noted that it has been conducting business in “strict compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including but not limited to all the applicable US national export control[s],” and has provided a “detailed investigation report to TSMC to prove Sophgo is not related to the Huawei investigation.”
In its own statement posted on X, formerly Twitter, Bitmain said it was not “involved in or otherwise related to the supply chain investigation as reported by the news recently” and that any allegation that it is involved is “false and baseless.”
Taipai-based independent journalist Tim Culpen has since reported that TSMC had made plans to manufacture ASICs for Bitmain at its Arizona facility in early 2025, with the two companies reportedly already in the advanced stages of pre-production when the potential sanction breach was first uncovered.
Bitmain has never been sanctioned or added to the US entity list. In March 2021, Taiwan prosecutors charged Bitmain with setting up two front companies to poach TSMC and MediaTek staff.
Beyond the statement made available last week in which TSMC said it had “proactively communicated with the US commerce department regarding the matter” and was “not aware of TSMC being the subject of any investigation at this time,” the company has declined to comment further.
This article has been updated
