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ARM No Longer In Business With Huawei Either
Earlier this week the trade war between China and the United States escalated, the US government this round targeted Huawei; US companies are no longer allowed to trade with the telecom specialist. ARM now also will halt cooperating with the manufacturer.
The British ARM Holdings has stated in a memo to its employees that it will immediately end all relationships with Huawei (and therefore with HiSilicon). According to the BBC, an analyst has concluded that this decision will "have a major impact on Huawei's chip-making capabilities," because many of these chips were made based on ARM's architecture.
-- BBC --
UK-based chip designer ARM has told staff it must suspend business with Huawei, according to internal documents obtained by the BBC. ARM instructed employees to halt "all active contracts, support entitlements, and any pending engagements” with Huawei and its subsidiaries to comply with a recent US trade clampdown. ARM's designs form the basis of most mobile device processors worldwide. In a company memo, it said its designs contained “US origin technology”. As a consequence, it believes it is affected by the Trump administration's ban. One analyst described the move, if it became long-term, as an “insurmountable” blow to Huawei’s business. He said it would greatly affect the firm's ability to develop its own chips, many of which are currently built with ARM’s underlying technology, for which it pays a licence. These are used in the Chinese company's 5G base stations and computer servers in addition to its smartphones. Cambridge-headquartered ARM had been described as the UK's largest tech firm until its takeover by a Japanese fund. It employs 6,000 workers and lists eight offices in the US.
On Monday 20 May, US government officials issued a 90-day reprieve on some of the restrictions in order to minimise immediate disruption. But ARM believes that the temporary licence involved does not apply to it. A spokesman for ARM declined to offer any additional clarity about the current status of its Huawei contracts.
"ARM is the foundation of Huawei’s smartphone chip designs, so this is an insurmountable obstacle for Huawei,” said Geoff Blaber, from CCS Insight.
"That said, with an abundance of companies in Huawei’s supply chain already having taken action to comply with the US order, Huawei’s ability to operate was already severely affected.”
What is not yet clear is whether ARM is acting on its own interpretation of the US rules, or whether it has been advised by the Commerce Department.
"If that interpretation is correct, that’s going to affect every semiconductor company in the world,” remarked analyst Lee Ratliff, from IHS Markit.
"They’re not going to be able to easily replace these parts with new, in-house designs - the semiconductor industry in China is nascent.”
schmidtbag
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#5672000 Posted on: 05/22/2019 07:05 PM
It's one thing for Google and Intel to drop support, but now that ARM is, Huawei is officially screwed.
ARM is now Japanese, at least if you base this on whoever owns them.
It's one thing for Google and Intel to drop support, but now that ARM is, Huawei is officially screwed.
The British ARM Holdings
ARM is now Japanese, at least if you base this on whoever owns them.
Kaarme
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#5672003 Posted on: 05/22/2019 07:10 PM
Their first priority is to comply with the Chinese government, though. It has been the national policy of China for the last decades to acquire high tech knowhow from abroad as much and fast as possible. In retrospect, I now think their recent huge efforts to develop domestic processor production capabilities is because the Chinese government did foresee this happening sooner rather than later, not only was afraid of it maybe happening at some point. Perhaps this is only the tip of the iceberg they have predicted. Many in the West don't bother to think about things too much, but the Chinese surely haven't forgotten there will always be a gap between democracies and communisms.
I hope they're doing this because they're actually a national security threat, and not just destroying a company to hit China. This is basically a wrap for Huawei, who as far as I can tell have been trying to comply as much as they can with the U.S. government.
Their first priority is to comply with the Chinese government, though. It has been the national policy of China for the last decades to acquire high tech knowhow from abroad as much and fast as possible. In retrospect, I now think their recent huge efforts to develop domestic processor production capabilities is because the Chinese government did foresee this happening sooner rather than later, not only was afraid of it maybe happening at some point. Perhaps this is only the tip of the iceberg they have predicted. Many in the West don't bother to think about things too much, but the Chinese surely haven't forgotten there will always be a gap between democracies and communisms.
vbetts
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#5672014 Posted on: 05/22/2019 07:23 PM
It's one thing for Google and Intel to drop support, but now that ARM is, Huawei is officially screwed.
ARM is now Japanese, at least if you base this on whoever owns them.
Google had to comply to US government orders.
It's one thing for Google and Intel to drop support, but now that ARM is, Huawei is officially screwed.
ARM is now Japanese, at least if you base this on whoever owns them.
Google had to comply to US government orders.
schmidtbag
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Posts: 4763
Joined: 2012-11-10
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Posts: 4763
Joined: 2012-11-10
#5672017 Posted on: 05/22/2019 07:27 PM
Understood; what I'm saying is Huawei could've managed to survive without Google or Intel's support. But without ARM, Huawei has nothing - the bulk of their income directly depends on ARM.
Google had to comply to US government orders.
Understood; what I'm saying is Huawei could've managed to survive without Google or Intel's support. But without ARM, Huawei has nothing - the bulk of their income directly depends on ARM.
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I hope they're doing this because they're actually a national security threat, and not just destroying a company to hit China. This is basically a wrap for Huawei, who as far as I can tell have been trying to comply as much as they can with the U.S. government.