MENU

Report: ARM complies with US trade ban, cuts off Huawei

Report: ARM complies with US trade ban, cuts off Huawei

Business news |
By Peter Clarke


Huawei is the world’s largest communications company and rising star in the smartphone business where it third behind Apple and Samsung.

ARM doesn’t make chips itself but licenses the instruction set architectures (ISAs) and processor cores that are fundamental to much of the world’s embedded applications including a near-monopoly in smartphones.

The BBC reports the memo as stating that ARM’s designs include technology of US origin. The report gives this as the reason ARM has decided to comply with the US ban. ARM is headquartered in Cambridge, England, owned by SoftBank of Japan. It has had offices in San Jose and an engineering center in Austin, Texas for many years.

ARM is the UK’s most successful technology company but was bought by SoftBank in 2016.

The BBC quoted an ARM statement as saying the company was “complying with all of the latest regulations set forth by the US government.”

The same report quotes Huawei as saying: “We value our close relationships with our partners, but recognise the pressure some of them are under, as a result of politically-motivated decisions.”

Ironically ARM sacrificed its licensing position in China when it allowed a joint venture to take over that role and then moved to being a minority shareholder in that joint venture (see SoftBank confirms sell-off of ARM China stake). As a result it could be that Huawei now receives its ARM license from and pays ARM royalties to a China-based entity.

However, it seems clear that without the direct cooperation of ARM in the western hemisphere and the extended ecosystem of EDA firms and foundries such as TSMC, Huawei would be hamstrung in terms of long-term competiton. This might drive Huawei and China generally to focus even faster on home-grown technology.

Related links and articles:

www.arm.com

www.huawei.com

News articles:

As Trump escalates US-China trade war, suppliers cut ties with Huawei

Huawei plans to build chip R&D facility in Cambridge

Huawei launches 7nm ARM server processor

China claims 7nm chip lead with Kirin 980

SoftBank confirms sell-off of ARM China stake

Huawei, ZTE smartphones, tablets banned in Germany


 


Share:

Linked Articles
10s