ARM Revokes Huawei's Chip IP Licence

[AleksandarK]

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.

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[Deleted member 97545]

nice

 

[Gasaraki]

That's unexpected. I wonder why they followed the US ban. Huawei had it set because they didn't use much US tech in their phones except for Micron memory in some but they had other vendors for memory so no big deal. With this license revocation, they wouldn't even be to make their own Kirin CPU .

 

[R-T-B]

Loongson in smartphone, here we come. AFAIK that's MIPS and android still works on MIPS.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Loongson in smartphone, here we come. AFAIK that's MIPS and android still works on MIPS.

Might work. However, this seems like another nail in the coffin..

 

[Error]

This is starting to look like a conspiracy. The UK is not the US, and AFAIK Huawei haven't infringed on ARM's IP ...

 

[lexluthermiester]

This is starting to look like a conspiracy. The UK is not the US, and AFAIK Huawei haven't infringed on ARM's IP ...

You seem to misunderstand the situation...

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I can't think of any direct causality between US legal action and ARM's decision so I assume ARM simply doesn't want anything to do with the sinking ship that is Huawei.

 

[R0H1T]

This is starting to look like a conspiracy. The UK is not the US, and AFAIK Huawei haven't infringed on ARM's IP ...

ARM is owned by a Japanese firm & Huawei licenses anything & virtually everything from them. Yes it is a part of the trade war but you don't go to war with empty shells.

 

[W1zzard]

That's unexpected. I wonder why they followed the US ban.

I could imagine they're simply worried that they might get labeled "enemy of the US"

 

[Patriot]

UK has had issue with Huawei's security practices dating back to 2010.

U.K. says Huawei equipment has major security flaws

U.K. officials argue that Huawei has not addressed security concerns in its products and has failed to implement a companywide cybersecurity overhaul it promised in 2012. | Government officials in the U.K. argue that Huawei has not addressed security concerns in its products and has failed to...

www.fiercewireless.com

And are currently barring them from core 5g networks.

Government Bans Huawei Kit from Core UK 5G Mobile Networks

Mobile operators Three UK, Vodafone, EE (BT) and O2 are to be officially told by the Government that they will be banned from deploying hardware and software fr

www.ispreview.co.uk

ARM is unsurprisingly distancing themselves from them.

 

[Divide Overflow]

I could imagine they're simply worried that they might get labeled "enemy of the US"

Or they simply have the same trade, security and IP trademark concerns with Huawei / China that the US does.

 

[dorsetknob]

ARM is stuck between a rock and a whitehouse place.
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"

 

[biffzinker]

Turns out ARM does have to be in compliance with the ban. ARM has two chip development centers here in the US. One in San Jose, CA and the other is Austin, TX

 

[Renald]

China is going to cut down ressources in raw materials such rare earths, which they own @70% with full access in Mongolia to the biggest spot in the world, or in distant Africa, which they own (they bought the lands).

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.

 

[Vayra86]

This is starting to look like a conspiracy. The UK is not the US, and AFAIK Huawei haven't infringed on ARM's IP ...

This action originates from Five Eyes.

Five Eyes - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[R-T-B]

Might work. However, this seems like another nail in the coffin..

It will certainly deeply wound them. Not certain it will kill them however.

 

[dorsetknob]

China is going to cut down ressources in raw materials such rare earths, which they own @70% with full access in Mongolia to the biggest spot in the world,

PEOPLE seem to think Rare Earths are indeed Rare.
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).

 

[Renald]

PEOPLE seem to think Rare Earths are indeed Rare.
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).

I never said that rare earths were rare, just that China holds most of actual mines in the world (with Brazil if I remember well). Rare earth is just is just a category of elements in the periodic table. That's all.
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.

 

[aQi]

Ok now the question is what other alternate does the chinese giant left with if ARM has done this ?

 

[dorsetknob]

China Currently Controls Most of the mines Producing Rare Earth Minerals at the moment yes
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.

 

[Vya Domus]

This gets more and more bizarre with each passing day. I find it hard to believe this trade ban would reach out this far to ARM. Sure they have their Austin Texas center which usually produces the high performance parts like the A7X core IP and you can say that's US bound but what about the rest ? The low power stuff like the A5X core IP usually comes out of places like Cambridge/Budapest .

Ok now the question is what other alternate does the chinese giant left with if ARM has done this ?

Nothing as far as I am concerned, even Apple that make their own custom cores still need the custom license from ARM for the ISA compatiblity. It's too much of a hurdle for Huawei to start making their own microarhitecure/ISA and their own software, they're without question dead.

 

[Sitohas Wang]

PEOPLE seem to think Rare Earths are indeed Rare.
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).

Can't agree more, CCP act more like a colony in China as they totally care less about the future environment inside China, they just earn money and move their relatives to the developed country.

 

[Dante Uchiha]

Microsoft creates a criminal monopoly, obliges to use the problematic software (W10) and still steals our data. Facebook does the same... And no one goes to war.

But when Huawei supposedly collects data the end of the world begins... great.

 

[aQi]

China Currently Controls Most of the mines Producing Rare Earth Minerals at the moment yes
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.

Correction towards Afghanistan.

You should search for CPEC as well.

Microsoft creates a criminal monopoly, obliges to use the problematic software (W10) and still steals our data. Facebook does the same... And no one goes to war.

But when Huawei supposedly collects data the end of the world begins... great.

So far nothing has been proven on huawei’s side...that it is or was a threat