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
My peanut butter is smooth. It was supposed to be crunchy. Those crooks at Microsoft must be controlling Peter Pan.
It rained this morning but the weather said it was not supposed to rain until tonight. Microsoft must be blackmailing the National Weather Service. :kookoo:
But if we entertained, for the sake of argument, the idea of the CPC helming things, for Africans at least, the differences are either insignificant or giving points to the Chinese (if we took things at face value without reading much into the subject). Between pumping cash into economies (even though in many cases it ends up in some warlord/dictator's pockets), building dams and other large constructions (even though some tend to come with their bugs >_>), providing much cheaper equipment and electronics, and of course not being "the white guy" (which, surprisingely still works with some people here). The Chinese are building the PR game well.
Their actions in the past and even now proves it as fact, not fiction or conspiracy and I'm not going to close my eyes and pretend the threat isn't there.
Just ask the Japanese about them.
Economic domination is one thing and it can be achieved in part by stealing data to undermine the tech industry of a competitor, boosting one's own economy at the expense of the other.
Perhaps where you are the impact is probrably neglegible at worst and I do agree, alot of income would fall into a warlord's pocket or something, that I cannot refute.
I'm also not saying Sudan's relationship with them at this time is bad, it's just you're not the ones they are really after right now but just wait - Once they see an opportunity they will take advantage of it.
Establishing a trade monopoly is one way and they are infamous for not playing by the rules (Or any) truth be known.
All I'm saying is regardless, to keep one eye open and on them at all times or pay the price because they are indeed playing the PR game well and it's not to lose.
pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7ab1/3108b384a666cc4df192aac153214c981801.pdf
"Take intellectual property, for example. The United States seems to have hard evidence that it was the policy of Huawei, a flagship Chinese high-tech company, to reward employees for I.P. theft. And, as I have written before, such a policy is encouraged, arguably even mandatory, under China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law. "
- www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/opinion/xi-trump-trade-war-china-leadership.html
www.npr.org/2019/01/29/689760862/what-the-huawei-indictment-says-about-how-china-steals-technology
From my local news a couple days ago: Nebraska cell towers contain equipment from Chinese company accused of spying
Again, you're missing the point. I wasn't fantasizing about a market dominated by the Chinese no more than I'm for the status quo. I want to see tech market where access cannot be held ransom at the whims of one state's foreign policy.
UK, I know, said they've not reached a decision yet as of May 16.It's technically domestic policy (ban on US entities doing transactions with companies on the entity list) but USA's reach is long so it spills over into foreign as a function of enforcing domestic.
www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-tech-usa-japan/softbank-brand-ymobile-to-delay-launch-of-huawei-p30-lite-phone-idUSKCN1SS0AOPOTUS not relevant. Japan did it in response to China manuvers beginning in early 2014.
In related news:
www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china/u-s-china-exchange-barbs-over-huawei-as-trade-tensions-flare-idUSKCN1ST0PA
ZTE brought China to the trade talks table and Trump may be hoping to seal the deal using Huawei in the bargain. Huawei will probably get a treatment similar to ZTE if it is done (fines, forced change of board of directors, severing the company from China government, etc.).
[/QUOTE]Source? Was that proven? This all sounds like a war of egos...Linux is a good alternative, but it has its limitations. Using it means restricting yourself to a small range of software and games.
Not even the giant Apple can replace windows OS...
Oh well, at the end of the day sensationalism still wins I guess.
...
Wow, I just basically quoted The Incredibles from Pixar. This has me seriously wondering which group I belong too...
The Japanese government knows who they must align to.
Physically going to war is the "last centuries" thing to do.
Come on! Homework people!
Just two minutes with Google would show the Japanese Armed Forces (AKA: Japan Self-Defense Forces) is the 4th most-powerful military in the world in conventional capabilities! They have the eighth largest budget! And nobody is stopping them from building it any bigger. Nor is anyone stopping them from going nuclear, other than their own constitution - which of course, they could change.Yeah, against the advice of all his foreign affairs and military advisors, and our allies! :rolleyes: Who really wants us out of the region? Russia, China and North Korea, of course.
We're off topic, let's rope it in a bit folks..