> a staff member told Yicai Global at the Arm Vision Day
That was March 30. Other sites I could find also credit Yicai. So if you want independent confirmation, you'll have to wait until someone else asks ARM, or they publish a press release. (Also, props to the submitter for finding the original source.)
>Huawei will have access to the company’s latest Armv9 architecture that may come out in the next few years, and its usage of the current Armv8 architecture is also not affected, said Liang Quan, marketing director at Arm China.
Not immediately obvious why something designed in the UK and manufactured in Taiwan should be subject to US export controls, but that's the world police for you.
Non-U.S. chip manufacturers using American chipmaking equipment, intellectual property or design software require a license to sell to entities subject to US export controls.
As such, TSMC is subject to them. Huawei was TSMC's number 2 customer prior to the controls announced last year.
The article talks about devices manufactured by HiSilicon (a Huawei subsidiary).
Maybe, but they're also using a bunch of China made stuff. Doesn't mean China gets a say on Taiwan exporting stuff to the US. It very much is a world police kind of situation.
Also, I would argue in terms of Chipmaking equipment the European part is the part that is non replaceable. For all its complaints about China stealing IP and nobody being able to force it, only the US Department of State can walk into a contract and strongarm countries not to sell things to the people they don't like[1].
But then again its not as black and white since China did indeed steal a lot of TSMC IP (or rather we don't know what they stole, but it's probably a safe bet to assume that they did during their last breach).
I'd say there is a large difference between the portions of the production lines sources from China and those sources from the US. The largest of which is that, for those portions sourced in the US there is no alternative supplier, which is likely how the US is able to enforce such export controls.
I think a better way to look at it is: the US is allowing TSMC to use export controlled equipment outside the US, in exchange for TSMC abiding by their restrictions.
Previous ARM chip designs contained “US origin technology", apparently, so I guess they were't entirely designed in the UK. ARM asserts that this does not apply to the ARMv9 architecture.
Please don't post generic ideological or nationalistic flamebait to HN. It leads to flamewars. In this case it didn't because the replies were excellent, but alas that is far from the case statistically.
> Cambridge-based Arm uses intellectual property originating from both the US and of non-US origin, a staff member told Yicai Global at the Arm Vision Day.
I wish we had a ban on Chinese products in that sectors altogether (also Chinese owned) and had incentives to start the production of parts in the country.
I am sick and tired of thinking that even by using networks (which is unavoidable) I will be supporting genocide, forced labour, child labour and other draconian measures Chinese government comes up with.
Yes we should care about human rights. Nobody put a gun to anyones head and forced them to invest in China. They chose to, and were permitted to by the government, who chose to ignore human rights in China when they were far worse, firstly because it was a lucrative opportunity, secondly because they wanted to pressurise the Soviets, whose human rights violations they focused one a huge amount, which is fine, except that worse violations by China were ignored (referring to the 70's, 80's)
Now that situation persisted throughout the 90s and today. That said, I don't think this Huawei ban had anything to do with human rights, and everything to do with power.
The thing is that as long as people don't see the suffering and exploitation, they'll just turn the blind eye and buy if it is cheap enough.
This is very unfortunate. I am not sure also why the tech world seems to be approving this, as whenever I express an opinion that maybe we should step back and rethink what's going on with China, I get a rain of downvotes. Really people are that low? Doesn't matter that someone on the other side of the world is treated worse than animals as long as the money is alright?
Such a two faced community - here they pretend to be the champions of equality, employee rights and so on, and then pretend they don't see what's going on elsewhere.
If I was a Chinese farmer who greatly increased my income by moving to the city, while I would rather have more pay than I have now, would definitely not want my employer to go out of business because their customers moved their money back to the US. How anyone thinks that diverting manufacturing away from China is going to help the humanitarian cause of Chinese workers is beyond me...
The same argument could be said about children forced to work in sweatshops - "If we ban sweatshops, how those children are going to make money for their family?"
There is no clean and nice way out of this, because their government will be kicking and screaming, but we simply can't have that in the world.
The trade should resume once China change their ways and those workers will have enough free time to end it - in the end their whole society is responsible for this and they should take that responsibility and sort themselves out.
Why the EU could say to the UK that there will be no trade agreement until we (the UK) agree to follow the EU standards so there is a level playing field? No such talk towards China.
A wealth transfer from developed countries to developing countries is clean and nice, as long as the people in the developing countries don’t mind their above average quality of life going down so that those with below average quality of life can go up. All the money for extra large vehicles, housing, TVs, laptops, phones, vacations, etc going to assist poor families around the world so the children don’t need to work and the parents can get weekends off, etc.
Except it almost never works out that way. Foreign aid goes to the foreign government, which uses it to stay in power (e.g., giving food only to loyal supporters). Since the problems of developing countries are usually related to tyrannical governments, foreign aid is a way of ensuring that the people cannot topple their tyrannical governments.
I guess I could have been clearer if I wrote "A wealth transfer from developed countries directly into accounts of people in developing countries, that their governments somehow can't take away".
And I don't mean people specifically in developing countries, the gist of my comment is that there are people who live above average quality of life, and people below, and much of the tension in the world is that you can't just bring people up the quality of life ladder in a short enough timeframe without also bringing others down the ladder. An intractable problem, if you will.
>If we ban sweatshops, how those children are going to make money for their family?
That kind of sounds like a good point to me... if I was going to ban child labor in my hypothetical country, I wouldn't do it until I had school lunches or some other child aid program set up to start at the same time. Banning survival techniques without offering alternatives sounds like a way to make people's lives worse with good intentions.
That is supposed to be one of the pillars of communism, but they have no incentive to do it. If we don't stop trade, they will not stop sweatshops. Someone's got to make a move.
You talk about banning Chinese products specifically as if China is the only country that has committed human rights violations in recent times. Should we (who is "we" anyway?) also ban products from the United States due to its aggressive foreign policy that has resulted in a much higher death toll than any reasonable estimate from Xinjiang? Do you also support the BDS movement against Israel which is similarly criticized for its alleged oppression and abuse of the Palestinian people (and similarly denies wrongdoing)?
on a bit of a tangent, but one of the big 'waves' I think are coming is much more detailed and accurate supply chaindata (think ubiquitous ledgers to track items through factories everywhere).
This is likely to come first in food (welcome to higher prices) but eventually you can imagine networks 'using US made chips only - talk american!'
And ... all of a sudden, government's social policies have genuine trade costs.
(Which feeds into my second thesis - how do we agree on common standards of behaviour)
Nvidia has said that Arm's IP will remain registered in the UK. But as an American company, I doubt that would put it out of the reach of US export controls.
Are there legal avenues to Nvidia maintaining ARM as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary that would indeed put it out of reach?
From a financial perspective, this is a large market that was suddenly removed from the income statements of TSMC, ARM, and likely many other Western industries.
I don't know the answer to that question. But considering the fact that even using chip design software from a US company is enough to get US export controls applied to the chip, I'd guess that there's no way around it.
Why even buy Huawei consumer devices now... even ignoring the CCP and their bs, Huawei now makes the same stuff as everyone else. Expensive, unrepairable, with locked down software and HiX bloatware. Maybe they do well in the Chinese market, I don't know.
The Kirin 980 was pretty damn good (faster and cooler than Exynos and the SD845 of that year) but otherwise, you might as well get a Samsung or whatever.
I've used the P20 Pro and P30 Pro and their cameras are awesome, almost magical in low light situations. I would have upgraded to the P40 Pro as well if not for the whole Google ecosystem shenanigan.
I think it's just fearmongering. Has anyone have definite proof that Huawei routers phone home or have backdoor? And if you extend the same skepticism to other devices like phones then I think it's rather funny when just yesterday there's a front page HN link about how much data Google collect from Android phones.
Yeah, they used to compete on price, but it's getting rare.
I also loved how open the Ascend P6 was, played with its SoC to my heart's content. Now you can't even request an official bootloader unlock for Huawei phones :/
In many countries of Africa (e.g.; Algeria, but north Africa in general), Huawei has a huge market share and they commercialize models that are well aligned with the consumer's budget in that region, given that they can't easily afford devices from Apple and Samsung which generally come at a higher price and higher maintenance costs. The last one is very important for those people as buying new devices is not that easy. For the average person, a new Iphone is equivalent to a work of 3/4 months.
I'm from Eastern Europe and Huawei isn't popular because the prices are simply the same as comparable Samsung/LG/etc devices. They used to be lower, but as I said, they stopped competing on price quite a while ago.
Instead, it's Xiaomi that's offering good value for a lower price. And they have Google Apps on their phones. Is it a known brand in North Africa? Their accessories at least are good quality and cheap.
I'd never buy Apple, don't fall for their trap haha
This is a legitimate situation. Why should Huawei continue to financially support ARM? When their legal usage of the ARM IP is now on shaky ground, just because some president can easily revoke their privilege to use it.
I say fck it! Burn down their IP with ARM. Billions of dollars wasted, and go all in with RISC-V. At least this way, they can at least control their own future, and create an alternate and independent China technology IP system.
As others have mentioned the challenge for Huawei/HiSilicon is not the design but the chip fabrication. Probably HiSilicon has the capabilities of designing a chip from scratch based on RISC-V or another ISA that is cutting edge.
I have seen rumours that Huawei may use Samsung as fab? I don't quite understand why Samsung would not be under the same constraints as TSMC. But perhaps the boycot of Huawei was more due to a deal between the Trump administration and the Taiwan government rather than an actual legal constraint. Much in the same manner as the US succesfully has lobbied for Huawei bans in most of the Western world.
It's probably just politics, I think the US might find it more difficult to threaten to sanction South Korea. Or it might not. But definitely SK has a bigger position of strength relative to the US than Taiwan or even the Netherlands.
Samsung is nearly 40% of the SK economy. An attempt to put sanctions on it would SEVERELY cripple their economy. And I would expect a backroom deal before they want that blow.
Another interesting rumour is that of a Chinese made EUV light source based on particle acceleration. Sounds really cool. Don't know what to make of it.
If the US China tech war would escalate further. And China prevents American chip companies such as Qualcomm and Apple from selling into the Chinese market, there would be a huge opportunity for fabs not using American "stuff".
If it was designed for Huawei using US EDA tools then it is subject to restriction. Even if it was Huawei specified, UK intellectual property and “sweat”. Unless of course Biden has changed the rules.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210125200703/https://www.comme...
Looks like ARM has a new core that needs desperately to sell. So let Huawei buy the licenses and then put embargo on anyone that sells whatever to Huawei :)
57 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 105 ms ] thread> a staff member told Yicai Global at the Arm Vision Day
That was March 30. Other sites I could find also credit Yicai. So if you want independent confirmation, you'll have to wait until someone else asks ARM, or they publish a press release. (Also, props to the submitter for finding the original source.)
2019 article that has the follow quote
>Huawei will have access to the company’s latest Armv9 architecture that may come out in the next few years, and its usage of the current Armv8 architecture is also not affected, said Liang Quan, marketing director at Arm China.
As such, TSMC is subject to them. Huawei was TSMC's number 2 customer prior to the controls announced last year.
The article talks about devices manufactured by HiSilicon (a Huawei subsidiary).
Also, I would argue in terms of Chipmaking equipment the European part is the part that is non replaceable. For all its complaints about China stealing IP and nobody being able to force it, only the US Department of State can walk into a contract and strongarm countries not to sell things to the people they don't like[1].
But then again its not as black and white since China did indeed steal a lot of TSMC IP (or rather we don't know what they stole, but it's probably a safe bet to assume that they did during their last breach).
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/ho...
I think a better way to look at it is: the US is allowing TSMC to use export controlled equipment outside the US, in exchange for TSMC abiding by their restrictions.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
> Cambridge-based Arm uses intellectual property originating from both the US and of non-US origin, a staff member told Yicai Global at the Arm Vision Day.
Now that situation persisted throughout the 90s and today. That said, I don't think this Huawei ban had anything to do with human rights, and everything to do with power.
A wealth transfer from developed countries to developing countries is clean and nice, as long as the people in the developing countries don’t mind their above average quality of life going down so that those with below average quality of life can go up. All the money for extra large vehicles, housing, TVs, laptops, phones, vacations, etc going to assist poor families around the world so the children don’t need to work and the parents can get weekends off, etc.
And I don't mean people specifically in developing countries, the gist of my comment is that there are people who live above average quality of life, and people below, and much of the tension in the world is that you can't just bring people up the quality of life ladder in a short enough timeframe without also bringing others down the ladder. An intractable problem, if you will.
That kind of sounds like a good point to me... if I was going to ban child labor in my hypothetical country, I wouldn't do it until I had school lunches or some other child aid program set up to start at the same time. Banning survival techniques without offering alternatives sounds like a way to make people's lives worse with good intentions.
This is likely to come first in food (welcome to higher prices) but eventually you can imagine networks 'using US made chips only - talk american!'
And ... all of a sudden, government's social policies have genuine trade costs.
(Which feeds into my second thesis - how do we agree on common standards of behaviour)
Wouldn't ARMv9 then become US technology, and subject to US export controls?
From a financial perspective, this is a large market that was suddenly removed from the income statements of TSMC, ARM, and likely many other Western industries.
The Kirin 980 was pretty damn good (faster and cooler than Exynos and the SD845 of that year) but otherwise, you might as well get a Samsung or whatever.
> Huawei now makes the same stuff as everyone else
Did you not answer your own question? Why not buy their product if the value is better?
I also loved how open the Ascend P6 was, played with its SoC to my heart's content. Now you can't even request an official bootloader unlock for Huawei phones :/
Instead, it's Xiaomi that's offering good value for a lower price. And they have Google Apps on their phones. Is it a known brand in North Africa? Their accessories at least are good quality and cheap.
I'd never buy Apple, don't fall for their trap haha
This is a legitimate situation. Why should Huawei continue to financially support ARM? When their legal usage of the ARM IP is now on shaky ground, just because some president can easily revoke their privilege to use it.
I say fck it! Burn down their IP with ARM. Billions of dollars wasted, and go all in with RISC-V. At least this way, they can at least control their own future, and create an alternate and independent China technology IP system.
I have seen rumours that Huawei may use Samsung as fab? I don't quite understand why Samsung would not be under the same constraints as TSMC. But perhaps the boycot of Huawei was more due to a deal between the Trump administration and the Taiwan government rather than an actual legal constraint. Much in the same manner as the US succesfully has lobbied for Huawei bans in most of the Western world.
https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung-manufacture-huawei-5n...
Samsung could manufacture Huawei’s next 5nm Kirin processor
A new report coming out of China claims that Huawei’s next 5nm chipset, the Kirin 9000L, will be made by Samsung Foundry.