On February 28th, according to Taiwan media reports, Russia's invasion of Ukraine triggered international condemnation and sanctions, and countries led by the United States offered export controls to Russia, which were all responded by Taiwan SMC, Intel, AMD and so on. The industry expects that large manufacturers will suspend exports to Russia, including restrictions on Russian buyers to purchase US-branded core processors (CPU) through the mainland market. Synchronize will be restricted.
According to statistics, Russia is the 35th largest exporter of semiconductors from Taiwan. According to the Taiwan Economic Institute, Russia accounted for about NT $560 million in Taiwan's total semiconductor exports in 2021, accounting for only 0.01 per cent. The industry predicts that the related incident will have little impact on TSMC shipments, but for Russia, which is completely dependent on semiconductor imports, the suspension of supplies by large international companies will be a heavy blow.
With regard to the suspension of shipments to Russia, TSMC reiterated yesterday (27) that it had always complied with the regulations. Intel and AMD have not directly commented on the issue of suspending exports to Russia. Earlier, the Washington Post disclosed that the Biden administration announced sanctions on the 24th, saying it would cut off half of Russia's imports of high-tech products, interrupting Russia's ability to diversify its economy and support its military. TSMC has completely stopped supplying to Russia and its upstream suppliers.
Reported that TSMC no longer make shipments of the customer is the Russian special application chip manufacturer Elbrus. The report quoted Tikos, an electronics expert from James, a British defense intelligence company, as saying that Russian military and Weian departments use Elbrus chips for some computing purposes. The loss of TSMC's chip assistance is a "heavy blow" to Russia.
According to industry insiders, the number of Elbrus films in TSMC is only a few thousand, and most of Russia's main dual-use core CPU still uses Intel platform. However, with Intel actively cooperating with export control measures, it will also affect the relevant adjustment of the supply chain. Supply chain and Mei foreign media mentioned that as the export control Russia policy will take effect, the relevant offices of Intel and AMD outside the United States have also notified relevant channel manufacturers and partners to prohibit the supply of processors to Russian objects on the export control list.
In addition, according to a press release issued by the Industrial Security Bureau of the US Department of Commerce, export control products aimed at Russia include semiconductors, computers, telecommunications, communications security equipment, lasers and sensors, and 49 Russian military objects are included in the entity list. The European Union, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand have announced basically similar restrictions.
