© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A smartphone with a displayed TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) logo is placed on a computer motherboard in this illustration taken March 6, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
By Sarah Wu and Ben Blanchard
TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC said on Friday that it expects to receive from the United States permission to supply U.S. chip equipment to its factory in China indefinitely.
TSMC said in a statement to Reuters that the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security had advised it to apply for a “validated end-user” (VEU) authorisation, which would serve as a permanent authorisation for its China operations.
“We expect to receive a permanent authorization through the VEU process,” the company said, noting that it did not need to apply for VEU status in the past.
Last October, the Biden administration published a sweeping set of export controls, including a measure to cut off China from certain semiconductor chips made anywhere in the world with U.S. tools, vastly expanding the reach of a bid to slow Beijing’s technological and military advances.
South Korea’s government said this week that Samsung Electronics (KS:) and SK Hynix will be allowed to supply U.S. chip equipment to their China factories indefinitely without separate U.S. approvals.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said last year it had been granted a one-year authorisation by the United States that covered its factory in Nanjing, China, that makes less-advanced 28 nanometre chips.
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