UPDATE: The company that produces the ARM-based processors for Huawei, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company believes that it can continue doing business with Huawei. The semiconductor company argues via their legal team that its sales to Huawei fall under the 25% threshold that is stated in the US trade ban and that if companies do, they violate it.
British multinational semiconductor company, ARM Holdings has suspended business with Huawei, which now threatens Huawei’s ability to create its own chips.
BBC News reports that ARM has instructed employees to halt “all active contracts, support entitlements, and any pending engagements” with Huawei and its subsidiaries. In the company memo, ARM says its designs contained “US origin technology”.
ARM said in a statement that it was complying with all the latest regulations set forth by the US government.
ARM designs for the basis for most mobile processors that we have today. The likes of Qualcomm, Apple and Huawei use ARM designs to make their Snapdragon, A series and Kirin custom chips.
ARM is a huge UK tech company that employs 6000 people and was recently bought by the Japanese fund, Softbank. ARM has played a huge role in the area of mobile computing where thanks to their designs, we have low power chips that power our smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices and it is one area Intel has had problems trying to disrupt.
The suspension of business by ARM to Huawei is an incredibly huge blow to Huawei’s business. Thanks to this ban, they will not be allowed to use ARM designs to make future Kirin system on a chip, which means their chip departments will suffer greatly under this.
The suspension of business by ARM adds to the woes to Huawei’s list of problems, which includes a temporary reprieve by Google to access its services, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro being delisted from the Android Q Beta Program and Microsoft removing their Matebooks from their stores.
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