Ex-AMD fab GlobalFoundries has been fined $500K after admitting it shipped $17,000,000 worth of product to a company associated with China's military industrial complex

A 300 millimetre silicon wafer in the clean rooms at the Globalfoundries fabrication (fab) plant in Dresden, Germany, on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021.
(Image credit: Liesa Johannssen-Koppitz/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Remember GlobalFoundries? AMD's ex-fab business is still estimated to be the third biggest semiconductor foundry in the world by revenue, thanks to its manufacture of chips for smart mobile devices, automotive, aerospace and defence, IoT and data center uses.

Now the company has fessed up to shipping $17 million worth of products to Chinese company SJ Semiconductor between February 2021 to October 2022 (via The New York Times). The Bureau of Industry and Security says that GlobalFoundries sent 74 different shipments of wafers over the course of this period, and as a result it would impose a fine of $500,000 for breaching the ongoing US-China chip trade restrictions.

SJ Semiconductor was added to the "entity list" of export regulated companies back in December 2020 for its links to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC). At the time, the US government said that SMIC was added "as a result of China's military-civil fusion (MCF) doctrine and evidence of activities between SMIC and entities of concern in the Chinese military industrial complex."

According to the BIS, GlobalFoundries voluntarily disclosed the breach of restrictions and co-operated with the investigation, and as a result received a relatively small fine. GlobalFoundries is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the CHIPS act, with $1.5 billion awarded to the company earlier this year, alongside $1.6 billion in federal loans.

Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Matthew S. Axelrod said: “We want U.S. companies to be hypervigilant when sending semiconductor materials to Chinese parties

“And when, as here, that vigilance falls short and semiconductor materials have gone where they shouldn’t, we want companies to make voluntary disclosures, remediate, and cooperate with us.”

GlobalFoundries might not be the only major semiconductor manufacturer worried about potential breaches of the restrictions. A recent Bloomberg report claims that TSMC has discovered that some of its chips may have ended up in devices made by Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications company that is also on the entity list.

TSMC is said to have halted shipments to a client in mid-October, after learning that chips fabricated for that entity were making their way into Huawei products. The company has reportedly notified both the US and Taiwanese governments of its findings, and is "investigating the matter more thoroughly", according to Bloomberg's unnamed source.

While a $500,000 fine might seem like a drop in the ocean for a major semiconductor manufacturer like GlobalFoundries, it seems like the US government may be going easy on the financial penalties in order to encourage companies that find themselves in breach of the restrictions to come forward.

Fess up, pay less seems to be the ethos here, although whether this lenient stance continues into the next administration after the US elections later this week remains to be seen.

Best CPU for gamingBest gaming motherboardBest graphics cardBest SSD for gaming


Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game first.

Andy Edser
Hardware Writer

Andy built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 12, when IDE cables were a thing and high resolution wasn't—and he hasn't stopped since. Now working as a hardware writer for PC Gamer, Andy's been jumping around the world attending product launches and trade shows, all the while reviewing every bit of PC hardware he can get his hands on. You name it, if it's interesting hardware he'll write words about it, with opinions and everything.

Read more
TSMC
TSMC and Trump announce massive $100 billion investment in the US including 3 new fabs but it's reasonable to ponder whether it will actually happen
American Business. American Flag, Modern Financial Building, Conceptual View
'The only way to beat China is to stay ahead of them' says US commerce secretary as she backs CHIPS investments handed out to Intel, TSMC over sanctions
TSMC's Fab 14
China taunts Taiwan with claim that chip foundry TSMC could soon become 'USSMC' or the 'United States Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'
A close-up stylized photo of a silicon wafer, showing many small processor dies
Broadcom and Nvidia are claimed to be testing manufacturing on Intel's 18A process node, and even AMD is reportedly interested
A close-up stylized photo of a silicon wafer, showing many small processor dies
Intel is still using TSMC for 30% of its wafer demands: 'We were talking about trying to get that to zero as quickly as possible. That's no longer the strategy'
TSMC 3nm
TSMC reportedly plots 2027 start date for its 3 nm US fab, but will that be in time to save next-gen GPUs from tariffs?
Latest in Hardware
Fallout New Vegas Key Art
The Fallout season 2 leaks continue with videos of the New Vegas set, including a sign for Mr. House's casino
The PCIe slot on an Asus ROG Strix B850-F Gaming WiFi motherboard, showing the Q-release latch for GPUs.
Gigabyte seemingly mocks Asus' recent Q-release debacle with a video swapping out an RTX 5070 Ti 100 times
Cyberpunk upscaling
New modder tool makes it easier than ever to swap AMD's FSR 4 scaling for Nvidia's DLSS or Intel's XeSS and vice versa
SteelSeries QcK Performance mouse pads overlapping on a desk
The SteelSeries QcK Performance series has reignited my excitement over the simple pleasure of a quality mouse pad… and trying to click skulls with pinpoint accuracy
NZXT H7 Flow PC case being built into
NZXT H7 Flow review (2024 Edition)
Xbox handheld
Microsoft is reportedly prepping a handheld Xbox for later this year with new consoles coming in 2027
Latest in News
Fallout New Vegas Key Art
The Fallout season 2 leaks continue with videos of the New Vegas set, including a sign for Mr. House's casino
Gallywix wears an uneasy smile as he's confronted by Xal'atath in WoW: The War Within.
World of Warcraft guild uses exploits to get world 'first' on the game's new raid, gets banned, puts its name backwards and does it again
Photo of BlizzCon 2023 main stage
BlizzCon 2025 isn't happening, meaning the event will miss its 20th anniversary, but it will return in 2026 to 'meaningfully elevate this iconic celebration'
Shohei Ohtani wearing Samurai Shohei outfit in Fortnite
The best baseball player alive is coming to Fortnite, and so is his dog
Mech in dry dock with person standing on catwalk underneath
How long can a live service game last? Theoretically, 'forever,' says Mecha Break developer: 'The last game I was in charge of has been alive and well for 16 years'
A computer screen with program code warning of a detected malware script program. 3d illustration
Coder faces 10 years' jailtime for creating a 'kill switch' that screwed-up his employers' systems when he was laid off