Wednesday, May 22nd 2019
ARM Revokes Huawei's Chip IP Licence
As the trade war between the US and China continues to unfold, we are seeing major US companies ban or stop providing service to China's technology giant Huawei. Now, it looks like the trade war has crossed the ocean and reached the UK. This time, UK based ARM Holdings, the provider of mobile chip IP for nearly all smartphones and tablets, has revoked the license it has given Huawei.
According to the BBC, ARM Holdings employees were instructed to suspend all interactions with Huawei, and to send a note informing Huawei that "due to an unfortunate situation, they were not allowed to provide support, deliver technology (whether software, code, or other updates), engage in technical discussions, or otherwise discuss technical matters with Huawei, HiSilicon or any of the other named entities." The news came from an internal ARM document the BBC has obtained.
So, what does this mean?
For starters, let's elaborate a bit on what exactly ARM's business is, and what connections they have with Huawei. ARM is the license provider of the ARM processor IP, which is used in all CPUs that are built around the ARM instruction set architecture. That means that whenever a microchip is designed using the ARM ISA, in order to be commercially sold, ARM needs to approve it. Those approvals are of course followed by a fixed fee the licensee is paying. How does that affect Huawei you might ask. A lot, actually. ARM is found in every chip Huawei designs and sells. Huawei's subsidiary, HiSilicon actually designs the chips, but that makes no difference. There exists a company called "ARM-China" but it has terminated the contract with Huawei as well.
The big questions now is, whether this termination affects existing devices sitting on retailer shelves, existing processors sitting in warehouses, chips currently being fabricated, or only future chip designs. In the worst case it could mean that Huawei is facing an immediate sales ban of all their phones or tablets using ARM processors, which will be a huge deal for the company.
What I think will happen in the short-term, is that they will most likely try to outsource chip manufacturing to someone with a license, like MediaTek (China) or Samsung (Korea), or adopt another industry standard ISA. A good candidate for that would be RISC-V, which is a (relatively) new and open architecture that requires no licensing. Having seen huge growth in China for all kinds of applications, from AI to IoT, RISC-V would be a logical decision, especially since the architecture is royalty-free.
But there is a problem. Currently, all of Huawei's efforts have been focused on Android, which is basically tailor-made for ARM chips. Android, mind you, is running on top of Linux, which has been ported to various other architectures in the past. The Linux kernel itself already supports RISC-V, and is available in distributions like Debian, Fedora, FreeBSD and NetBSD, so there exists a possibility that Huawei will build its new software and hardware stack on top of those.
Source:
BBC
According to the BBC, ARM Holdings employees were instructed to suspend all interactions with Huawei, and to send a note informing Huawei that "due to an unfortunate situation, they were not allowed to provide support, deliver technology (whether software, code, or other updates), engage in technical discussions, or otherwise discuss technical matters with Huawei, HiSilicon or any of the other named entities." The news came from an internal ARM document the BBC has obtained.
For starters, let's elaborate a bit on what exactly ARM's business is, and what connections they have with Huawei. ARM is the license provider of the ARM processor IP, which is used in all CPUs that are built around the ARM instruction set architecture. That means that whenever a microchip is designed using the ARM ISA, in order to be commercially sold, ARM needs to approve it. Those approvals are of course followed by a fixed fee the licensee is paying. How does that affect Huawei you might ask. A lot, actually. ARM is found in every chip Huawei designs and sells. Huawei's subsidiary, HiSilicon actually designs the chips, but that makes no difference. There exists a company called "ARM-China" but it has terminated the contract with Huawei as well.
The big questions now is, whether this termination affects existing devices sitting on retailer shelves, existing processors sitting in warehouses, chips currently being fabricated, or only future chip designs. In the worst case it could mean that Huawei is facing an immediate sales ban of all their phones or tablets using ARM processors, which will be a huge deal for the company.
What I think will happen in the short-term, is that they will most likely try to outsource chip manufacturing to someone with a license, like MediaTek (China) or Samsung (Korea), or adopt another industry standard ISA. A good candidate for that would be RISC-V, which is a (relatively) new and open architecture that requires no licensing. Having seen huge growth in China for all kinds of applications, from AI to IoT, RISC-V would be a logical decision, especially since the architecture is royalty-free.
But there is a problem. Currently, all of Huawei's efforts have been focused on Android, which is basically tailor-made for ARM chips. Android, mind you, is running on top of Linux, which has been ported to various other architectures in the past. The Linux kernel itself already supports RISC-V, and is available in distributions like Debian, Fedora, FreeBSD and NetBSD, so there exists a possibility that Huawei will build its new software and hardware stack on top of those.
88 Comments on ARM Revokes Huawei's Chip IP Licence
www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/uk-says-huawei-equipment-has-major-security-flaws
And are currently barring them from core 5g networks.
www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/04/government-bans-huawei-kit-from-core-uk-5g-mobile-networks.html
ARM is unsurprisingly distancing themselves from them.
Toe the US Line or Suffer the consequences.
you have to Reconcile ARM has Business links to all Major US Corporations and Shareholders.
Think of this what if He who shall not be named tweets
"I think our (US) Patent Office should revoke all ARM Patents"
So companies as manufacturing chips or any battery consumming product is going to be impacted. And Japan will not be spared.
Enjoy your +300% price in the next few month.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
They are not in fact they are Pretty Commom often thrown away in the processing of other Minerals.
They are however Expensive to Refine into a usable Resource
Ecologically the refining is Highly Toxic to the environment
China care's little about the Ecologically and the refining is Highly Toxic to the environment if not done with precision
Cost of Refining ( in consideration to the environment) is what stops the rest of the world from competing with China
Previous attempts by china to fix price and availability of "Rare Earth MINERALS" Have made countrys like Japan and the US explore for other sources
Undersea mining (Japan) Reopen old mine working (mineral price rise may again make them Economic again).
Sure Japan have mines underwater, but retrieving the mud from 6000m underwater is not that efficient compared to open-sky mines they have in north-china and Mongolia.
And you "store" rare earth that easily. If China decide to cut supply, it's going to be a huge mess.
And for next time :
You just didn't read and take the opportunity to lecture somebody because you think you're smarter than everybody else. Rare earths are called rare earths. Try to find where I said it was rare.
and like i said if they try to ransom the supply they risk country's accessing other Rescorces.
That may be Undersea mining
it may be the re opening of mines ( that would then be Profitable ). EPA basicly made the most profitable US mine Close as they could not compete with unregulated Chinese mining.
New mine's in Places like Afghanistan ( Supposed to have massive reserves).
Mining in Space (Asteroid's ect).
If the world is denied access ot the Current chinese product they will Source elsewhere and China loses another Revenue Source as well as further Taraffs imposed.
But when Huawei supposedly collects data the end of the world begins... great.
You should search for CPEC as well.So far nothing has been proven on huawei’s side...that it is or was a threat
But yes -- ARM is owned by a big Japanese conglomerate that owns 100% of ARM, Boston Dynamics, Fortress Investment Group and 87.1% stake in Brightstar Corporation -- all of which are American companies. Im guessing that SoftBank Group (The parent company/owners) had to act due to pressure from US Politicians.
Another thing which is also kinda ironic is that EPIC Games is part owned by a big chinese company which has ties to the chinese government but somehow they arent a security risk at all. While telecommunications is of course more important than some software you can install on your PC. It could still become a threat if Tencent buys a bigger stake in the company and start having their own people write the software for the launcher so they could put in all sorts of spyware and backdoors etc etc and its funny because a lot of people play fortenight. All Tencent would have to do is release an update for a launch and of a sudden they can turn every computer on the network into a zombie node
-- It sounds like a hollywood movie i know but you cant rule out that it wont happen since cyber attacks these days are a thing of the future.