The U.S. government plans to unveil stricter regulations to block shipments of advanced processors made by TSMC, GlobalFoundries, Intel, and Samsung Foundry to China. By ‘advanced,’ the new rules mean processors made on 14nm or 16nm process technologies or more advanced that contain 30 billion transistors or more, according to Bloomberg. But there will be exceptions.
The new rules target chips with 30 billion transistors made on 14nm or 16nm nodes or smaller, as such products are presumed to be restricted for shipment to entities in China and other restricted nations unless their developers get an export license from the U.S. Department of Commerce. Chip designers from the U.S., Taiwan, or an allied nation can apply for a license if they sell to ‘authorized customers.’ Also, processors with fewer than 30 billion transistors and packaged by a trusted company would not be classified as advanced and, therefore,e, would not fall under the new restrictions, according to Bloomberg’s sources.
Virtually all modern processors rely on FinFET transistors and, therefore, on 14nm, 16nm, or more advanced process technologies. This rule applies to many currently available processors, from simple SSD controllers to smartphone CPUs and CPUs for client PC. However, since most client processors (except GPUs) contain fewer than 30 billion transistors and are packaged by well-known companies, they will not be subject to U.S. export controls.
Also, since companies like AMD, Apple, Intel, MediaTek, Silicon Motion, and Phison are either based in the U.S. or Taiwan, they will likely be granted export licenses by the U.S. Department of Commerce even when their processors made on advanced nodes reach a transistor count of 30 billion or higher. This will happen shortly, as Apple’s M4 system-on-chip for mainstream PCs is already at 28 billion transistors.
But while the new export rules have little to do with the vast majority of chips for client devices, they force AMD, Intel, and Nvidia to apply for an export license when selling mainstream GPUs to a Chinese entity, even if that GPU was previously deemed unrestricted because its AI performance was not considered powerful enough for severe applications. This could impact Nvidia significantly.
However, the U.S. government may not be directly interested in barring sales of gaming graphics cards to China. The plan is to control shipments of moderately or highly advanced AI GPUs to China, Iran, or Russia. As a bonus, the U.S. government is closing loopholes to prevent blacklisted Chinese or Russian entities from acquiring sophisticated AI GPUs through proxy companies (like Huawei did with Sophgo as an intermediary). From now on, any processor containing over 30 billion transistors and made on a 14nm/16nm production node shipped to China is subject to U.S. export controls.
It remains to be seen whether the current administration will impose the new restrictions or whether the government will prepare the groundwork and leave the enactment to the incoming Trump administration.
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