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ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei
- ckugblenu 7y agoThis looks more like a global chess match than anything else.
- molteanu 7y agoThis looks like the USA is afraid of China's might, so what else should it do than to fight it's rise and development with all means possible (like it's already doing in the Middle East [1]). Or did you actually think this is all about "democracy", "free markets", "dictators" and the like? When the battle gets rough, big guns show up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_containment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_containment
- ghobs91 7y agoOr maybe this is retaliation for the billions Chinese companies have made off stolen American IP. Ever thought of that? To imply this is pure protectionism is over simplifying it.
- jolfdb 7y agoOr maybe IP theft is retaliation for the opium wars. It's silly to look at a centuries long geopolitical struggle for hegemony through the lens of fair play as though it's just a game among friends.
- ghobs91 7y agoIn which case this move against huawei is "just business". It's their problem now to figure out how to develop top tier hardware and software without stealing it from American companies and rebranding it.
- logicchains 7y agoI thought the problem was that they had developed something better than what the US currently has, their 5G implementation, and that's what has the US worried.
- criddell 7y agoI always thought that it was about 5G being a significant chunk of future telecom infrastructure (which impacts national defense) and they don't want to buy it from Chinese companies.
- mr_toad 7y agoThis goes beyond protectionism. It's more like mercantilism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism
- yread 7y agoThat seems like a pretty big deal. I wonder if they have a response to that (like the "spare tyres in the safe" [0]). Would be cool if future phones from Huawei ran on China produced MIPS chips [0] https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/huaweis-chip-arm-hisilicon-says-it-has-long-been-preparing-for-us-ban-scenario https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/huaweis-chip-arm...
- unixhero 7y agoWell RISC v5 is open source.
- naraic0o 7y agoI think you mean RISC-V (V being the Roman numeral for 5). The MIPS ISA is now also open source, as of Q1 2019[0]. [0] https://www.mips.com/mipsopen/ https://www.mips.com/mipsopen/
- sanxiyn 7y agoNote that this is MIPS Release 6, which is incompatible with existing MIPS ISA. For example, Debian is planning to create an entirely new port, mipsr6, in addition to mips.
- yogthos 7y agoThis could be a really great thing in the long run. I'm really hoping this will promote open hardware and software in the future. Huawei is most likely to start relying on open source tech, since they're under so much scrutiny that's the best way to show they're being above board. Using open software and hardware would also show that same thing couldn't happen with their stack in the future. If they're smart, they'll partner up with some companies in EU to make it an international effort. US is basically terrified of losing control of mobile networks when 5G ends up being implemented by a Chinese company. They're also clearly doing the exact thing they're accusing China of themselves here. I think that this is going to backfire spectacularly in the long run.
- zaphar 7y agoThere is one critical difference between America and China here. American companies have for the most part not been engaging in wholesale state sponsored theft of Chinese IP. Whatever you may think of the wisdom of a trade war, no one can really argue that China hasn't given the US all the ammunition it needed to give political cover to engaged in one.
- molteanu 7y agoWhen you're advanced enough, there is no need for you do to IP. Maybe the risk is not worth it or there is nothing to gain from it. It's the same argument with the open markets. When you're already a developed economy, open markets benefit you since you have the best products, your production facilities are in place and you can offer both quantity, quality and reasonable prices. But when you are a developing nation, protections are needed for key sectors. US did both of these things. That is, closed markets and protectionism and IP theft. It doesn't matter that, oh, "this was a long time ago, it doesn't count". It does. Advantages add up year after year, century after century. I'm not even trying to defend China, but instead, trying to be clear and honest about how these things work in the real world, regardless of sentiments and your favorite team. I just did a quick lookup, you can do the same. I'm sure there are more examples out there. In 1787, American agent Andrew Mitchell was intercepted by British authorities as he was trying to smuggle new technology out of the UK. His trunk was seized after being loaded on board a ship. Inside the trunk were models and drawings of one Britain's great industrial machines. Mitchell himself was able to escape and sought refuge in Denmark. But his mission marks the start of a sustained US campaign to steal technology from the world's hi-tech superpower of the day. [1] [1] https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-02-18/us-complains-other-nations-are-stealing-us-technology-america-has-history https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-02-18/us-complains-other-na...
- mark_l_watson 7y agoHopefully not too off topic: I am in the USA and I have always wondered how long we could hold on to having the world’s reserve currency. I have to wonder if even some of our close allies take pause in my government’s ability to economically attack commercial competitors like Huawei, and in the past the ‘axis of evil’ oil producing countries that had announced their willingness to sell oil in currencies other than the US dollar. I am concerned this is going to eventually backfire on us.
- awt 7y agoIt will and is. Every time the US attempts to control what can be purchased with dollars, it advances the process of turning the USD into a kind of Chuck E. Cheese token.
- chii 7y ago> I am in the USA and I have always wondered how long we could hold on to having the world’s reserve currency. until the US cannot maintain superior millitary power. > I am concerned this is going to eventually backfire on us. it certainly will, the same way any collapsing superpower "backfires". The brunt of it will be felt by the citizens, while the rich and powerful would have an "out".
- pjmlp 7y agoI am pretty sure trying to face China on that front will have quite a different outcome than securing oil sources in Middle East countries, sadly for the whole planet.
- rswail 7y agoBeing the reserve currency is not relevant to the industrial trade war underway. The US's power here is in its consumer market and its ability to impact other nations by threatening them with secondary boycotts. EU companies have no reason not to trade with Iran under the JCPOA, but US law says that any company that does cannot trade with the US. That's not the currency controlling, it's the trade. There may be legitimate security concerns about 5G and its ability to be penetrated. On that basis, doesn't that mean that the design of 5G is inherently flawed? That is the issue.
- sigmar 7y agoSo what is going to happen with the Hisilicon[1] chips? Do they still get to keep using all the licenses they already agreed to? What will they do when they next cortex implementation comes out? Copy it? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiSilicon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiSilicon
- sanxiyn 7y agoHiSilicon already developed their own ARM64 core (not Cortex) in Kunpeng 920, although it is a server chip and not a mobile chip. I think HiSilicon is entirely capable of developing (not copying) their own core.
- 0xcde4c3db 7y agoThe thing about ARM is that they more or less act like they own the ISA itself, and have a huge patent portfolio. There's an expectation that a company have an "architecture license" to make their own ARM-compatible core from scratch (unless it's an obsolete version of the ISA, e.g. Amber [1]). So while you're right that Cortex per se isn't relevant, there's still a question of whether HiSilicon will legally be able to sell any new ARM-compatible core they design. [1] https://opencores.org/projects/amber https://opencores.org/projects/amber
- baybal2 7y agoARM licensed cores under 3 legal entities. UK's parent company, ARM China in mainland, and ARM China in Hongkong. Under all 3, jurisdiction the ARM is screwed if Huawei will begin claiming their contractual obligations from them. Maybe UK courts will give them some special treatment.
- tyingq 7y agoMaybe a boost for RISCV.
- b_tterc_p 7y agoThe article says ARM doesn’t manufacture the chips but licenses out the tech. Does Huawei manufacture it? Is there any reason for Huawei to not just take their last known tech spec and start producing and developing it in house?
- sanxiyn 7y agoHiSilicon (fully owned subsidary of Huawei) designs SoC and TSMC manufactures it.
- Tepix 7y agoThere are probably some important limitations in the license granted to HiSilicon. They may not be able to do everything they want. Also they may not be able to keep up with the designs as developed by ARM.
- smallstepforman 7y agoARM management are shooting themseves in the head here, this will divert Huawei funds to Risc-V instead. Time to dump ARM shares.
- deepaksurti 7y agoARM is no longer publicly listed, it is a private subsidiary of Soft Bank group. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Holdings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Holdings
- baybal2 7y agoWell, you can still find a PE broker yourself
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- simonh 7y agoI'm afraid this theory fails the reality test. If it was that easy, and that certain Huawei would succeed and surpass ARM, they would have done it already and wouldn't need to be forced into it.
- imtringued 7y agoThere are a lot of things that could happen but there is no reason for them to happen. Provide the reason and they will happen.
- dharma1 7y agoHow long would it take Huawei (or a bunch of Chinese companies) to develop MIPS or RISC-V based phones? Too long to run out of cash (given that their sales for the foreseeable future just cratered) - or doable?
- sanxiyn 7y agoI think Huawei can fund RISC-V phone development from their telecommunication equipment business. Their revenue is roughly split half and half between telecom and smartphone.
- dharma1 7y agoyep, I expect their basestations use ARM extensively too. Still, I wonder what the timeline would be for a production ready RISC-V chipset. They might be out of business before it's ready
- Symmetry 7y agoI'd guess on the order of 5 years. Taking silicon from idea to mass production is something that takes a long time and this isn't something that Huawei has done before. EDIT: Apparently Huawei has been developing their own ARM cores via architectural liscence so they might be able to hack together a poor solution in less time than that by sticking with ARM in the short term and they might be able to get a decent MIPS SoC (for pre-existing Android compatibility) working in less time than 5 years.
- sanxiyn 7y agoNot just developing. They did a tapeout.
- Matthias247 7y agoThe CPU is however also only one part of the puzzle, and they need all the peripherals (and especially: Modems!) too.
- 7y ago
- Tepix 7y agoJust wow. Is ARM doing its share of anticipatory obedience? China is not going to keep still. My expectation is that they will support Huawei (and other chinese companies) in a big way to establish alternatives to ARM, Android, Windows (?) and other technologies missheld from them. Copyright is being used similar to DRM. Companies will take notice. This promises to be good for Open Source, perhaps also Open Hardware.
- whoevercares 7y agoFor some reason I start singing the'Internationale'(and Huawei should sing with me at this moment!) : Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes, Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun, Producteurs sauvons-nous nous-mêmes! Décrétons le salut commun! Pour que le voleur rende gorge, Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot, Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge, Battons le fer quand il est chaud!
- DCKing 7y agoI see a lot of people dreaming about Huawei needing to pivot to open source technology, but the overwhelmingly likely outcome here is that the trade dispute gets (partially) resolved to the extent that Huawei can operate as usual again. Dreaming of Huawei backed RISC V SoCs is a pipe dream anyway, at least for mobile processors. For a mobile SoC you need a GPU as well. There are no viable open source GPU architectures, and all vendors are US-based (Vivante, Broadcom (?), AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Intel, only the first three ever do licensing deals) or UK based (ARM (Mali), PowerVR).
- jason0597 7y agoARM's now owned by Softbank (Japanese), so it's not even British anymore
- shard 7y agoVivante was a US company in name only (engineering in China) and after acquisition in China (by Verisilicon, whose founder and CEO is the brother of the founder and CEO of Vivante), it's not even a US company in name. Also, other US companies with GPUs besides the first 3 in your list are are open to licensing if the fees are big enough. I can't give more details than that though.
- desdiv 7y ago>Also, other US companies with GPUs besides the first 3 in your list are are open to licensing if the fees are big enough. This is a news story about a UK company being prohibited from dealing with Huawei due to its products containing "US origin technology". So I'm assuming that US GPU companies would also be prohibited from licensing to Huawei due to their IP's "US origin".
- sanxiyn 7y agoNote that Imagination Technologies (a company behind PowerVR) made an explicit statement that they are not affected by US ban because they have no US origin technology. Read Bloomberg report here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-20/european-chipmakers-drop-as-huawei-ban-cripples-supply-chain https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-20/european-...
- eleitl 7y agoAs if RISC-V needed any PR.
- kbumsik 7y agoNow I'm wondering what will happens to ESP8266/ESP32. ESP8266 is a Wi-Fi SoC which was extremely popular in hobbyist world, and its successor, ESP32, is widely accepted in industry too. Will it have any impact on companies that use ESP such as Particle [1] and Arduino? [1]: https://www.particle.io/ https://www.particle.io/
- sanxiyn 7y agoI don't think so. Espressif is not Huawei.
- kbumsik 7y agoBut it's a Chinese SoC company. I'm wondering if the fight between US and China will widen to any SoC companies in the long term.
- pi-rat 7y agoProbably not, you can only escalate this trade war so many times before it becomes unsustainable by one or both parties. China will probably retaliate by banning a major US tech company, maybe Apple? Keep doing this a couple of times and pressure/lobbying/economic damage will force a resolution.
- turbinerneiter 7y agoThese are not made by Huawei and do not use ARM cores. They are made by Espressif and use Tensilica cores. Tensilica is a US company, owned by Cadence. I don't know of any ties between Espressif and Huawei.
- captainbland 7y agoIt's a pretty bold move by ARM to stop working with Huawei even if it does believe that it's affected by the American ban. It seems like it's very likely to damage their image in the eyes of other non-western technology firms who could end up on America's radar. Won't a lot of execs be scratching their heads thinking, "what if we're next to be cut off in this trade war?"
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- simonh 7y agoIf it is subject to the ban, it would be a pretty bold move to ignore it and carry on in violation of US law. Not an easy position to be in.
- greatpatton 7y agoYeah like US rules the world and US laws should apply to everyone! Then don't be surprised if the rest of the world prefer Chinese because as of today the last imperialistic power is the USA. By the way nobody outside of the US voted for your smart president.
- sanxiyn 7y agoUS laws should not apply to everyone, but in practice they do, sort of. The most prominent example is internet services censoring nipples due to US stupidity.
- greatpatton 7y agoUS laws apply to everyone because US laws are extraterritorial in nature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterritorial_jurisdiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterritorial_jurisdiction
- Zak 7y ago
- Waterluvian 7y agoI wonder if this all makes Huawei grumble and feel the costs of the kind of government they work under. I wonder if it has any effect towards more liberalism in China.
- als0 7y agoARM has design centers in the USA so this doesn’t surprise me.
- xvilka 7y agoHopefully, it will not only boost RISC-V adoption, but also the FOSS EDA[1][2][3] tools, FPGA[4][5] and ASIC[6][7][8] design tools, various high-level languages, and toolkits to work with hardware designs. You can also follow my idea[9] and initiative to create low-level hardware IR instead of al tools parsing or producing Verilog/VHDL. Apparently, both are a pretty bad fit for chip design, thus many high-level languages[10] were created. [1] KiCAD http://kicad-pcb.org/ http://kicad-pcb.org/ [2] Qucs https://github.com/Qucs/qucs https://github.com/Qucs/qucs [3] gEDA http://www.geda-project.org/ http://www.geda-project.org/ [4] Yosys https://github.com/YosysHQ/yosys https://github.com/YosysHQ/yosys [5] SymbiFlow https://symbiflow.github.io https://symbiflow.github.io [6] The OpenROAD https://theopenroadproject.org https://theopenroadproject.org [7] The OpenROAD https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project [8] Chisel3 https://github.com/freechipsproject/chisel3 https://github.com/freechipsproject/chisel3 [9] https://github.com/SymbiFlow/ideas/issues/19 https://github.com/SymbiFlow/ideas/issues/19 [10] https://github.com/drom/awesome-hdl https://github.com/drom/awesome-hdl
- ngcc_hk 7y agoStrange comment about a firm in a totalitarian country which does not allow USA app will favour openness and freedom ...
- greatpatton 7y agoUSA has a secret judiciary system and gag order. From a European point of view, this is quite close from totalitarianism.
- rement 7y agoWhat about Motorola Mobility? Their main focus is on consumer electronics (mostly smartphones) but it is also a Chinese owned company. Is the main concern with Huawei the telecom and networking equipment?
- sanxiyn 7y agoYes, I think it is mostly about Huawei, not about Chinese companies in general.
- zhangshine 7y agoAs a Chinese, I am hoping our government will invest more money in high-tech industries rather than real estate. It is a chance for China to escape the middle income trap.
- Iv 7y agoTo all the people thinking geopolitics, please just remember that ARM is owned by Softbank now. For this kind of decisions, this is a Japanese company.
- sanxiyn 7y agoFor this case, the relevant information is that ARM has a design center at San Jose. The news is, in a sense, unsurprising.
- walshemj 7y agoThis is interesting I was listening to onw of the War on the rocks podcasts and their commentary was that the commerce department has to produce in < 150 days the details of what this will mean. Everyone seems to be jumping the gun here "working towards the president maybe"
- mirimir 7y ago> He said it would greatly affect the firm's ability to develop its own chips, many of which are currently built with ARM’s underlying technology, for which it pays a licence. Maybe China could just change its laws to void ARM's patents. Then Huawei wouldn't need to worry about licensing. Extreme, I know. But China will very likely, at some point, need to counter this somehow. Edit: I wonder if China could afford a trade boycott against the US. Also, doesn't it own tons of US bonds? What if it had a fire sale on them? How would that affect the US?
- sgift 7y agoIf I read it correctly the patents aren't the main problem, more that no one from ARM is allowed to work with Huawei anymore. No support with problems, no influence on the design of future ARM products, no custom modifications. These things are probably as valuable - or even more - than the licensed tech itself.
- mirimir 7y agoMaybe so. But there are ways to get support off-the-record, if you're willing to pay enough.
- ac29 7y ago> I wonder if China could afford a trade boycott against the US. Also, doesn't it own tons of US bonds? What if it had a fire sale on them? How would that affect the US? Most people overestimate this. Of the $22T US Debt, only $6T is held by all foreign accounts combined, $1T of which is held by China. The majority of US Debt is held domestically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_St...
- manacit 7y agoIndeed, the bond market is liquid and deep. If China wanted to dump the Treasuries they own, the US could easily opt to buy them back to prop the price up as a method of last resort, which would likely not have a huge impact. It would probably hurt them in the long term if anything - weakening the dollar makes their export-driven economy more expensive, ultimately stifling growth.
- lisk1 7y agoThe thing US dont understand at this point is that companies outside of US are willing to exchange IPs with Chinese, which means that companies that are not dependent on US technologies will benefit greatly from this ban. Too impulsive decision by the US but they are too focused to be not outrun. Well only the time will tell
- imtringued 7y agoI bet this will backfire. ARM isn't exactly known for building fast CPUs, therefore there is a lot of room for a slightly worse but cheaper competitor that designs the SoCs in China from start to finish.
- achina_001 7y agoAs a Chinese and arm employee here, the ban makes me feel shame on the original motivation of creating the joint venture between local govement and arm, which is trying to help local companies like Huawei to work around the exactly ban like this. Arm China really does a bad job. Besides, its empolyee turn over rate also rise to about more than 40% from 5% since the creation of Arm China due to the bad management:(