The Chinese government has put a Canadian semiconductor consultancy, which is known for its reverse-engineering analysis of chips to track their source, on a trade blacklist in a sign of a widening tech war with the West.
The move came a few days after TechInsights generated headlines for publishing a report claiming that Huawei Technologies had used advanced components from Asia’s largest semiconductor firms, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, in some of its Ascend artificial intelligence processors.
It was not the first time that TechInsights had exposed Huawei’s chip secrets through teardown reports on products from the Shenzhen-based tech giant, which was blacklisted by the US in 2019.
TechInsight reports have been “attractive” to the global tech supply chain, including Chinese tech companies and consumers, for their “aggressive viewpoints and bold content”, said Chen Jia, an independent analyst in global strategy. However, he said it was “within expectation” that unauthorised teardowns would bring risk and legal issues given the intensified tech war.
