I recall someone a while ago talking about Huawei still being reliance on ARM despite being able to design its own chip. Seems like Huawei has got it figured out.
Huawei will use its own phone chips amid report UK design firm ARM has cut business ties, says analyst
- If ARM cuts ties with Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant will accelerate use of its own in-house chips, Jefferies says
‘Switch to Huawei!’: US ban could hurt Apple sales as Chinese show support
The US move came as talks to resolve a lingering trade war between the world’s two-biggest economies ended without agreement this month, sparking a wave of targeted actions by the Trump administration against China.
Huawei Technologies is likely to be able to weather a reported suspension of business with UK chip designer ARM as it will be able to rely on its own Kirin chips, according to a research report by Jefferies.
ARM, which develops the designs for chips used in smartphones and other connected devices, supplies two types of licence to Huawei – core and architectural – but any suspension will have limited impact on Huawei’s smartphone production, at least in the short-term, Jefferies analyst Rex Wu wrote in a note on Wednesday.
If Huawei loses its core licence from ARM, it will be able to use its self-developed custom CPU core and GPU architecture, Wu said. Huawei’s architectural licence, granted through ARM’s non-controlling joint venture in China set up last May to secure supplies for Chinese companies following a US export ban on ZTE, should remain valid, Wu said.
“We think ARM's suspension will accelerate Huawei adopting its own customer cores in new Kirin chips, and also developing its own Operating System and ecosystem,” said Wu. “We think Huawei will likely launch new Kirin chips in the near term to show little disruption to operations.”
ARM is the latest partner reported to be cutting ties with Huawei following the Trump administration’s move to add it to the US Commerce Department’s Entity List, after concluding that the Chinese telecom major was engaged in activities “contrary to US national security or foreign policy interests”. Google has blocked Huawei’s access to future Android operating system updates and a range of other overseas suppliers are considering cutting ties to comply with the US blacklist, which prevents Huawei from buying American technology.
The US move came as talks to resolve a lingering trade war between the world’s two-biggest economies ended without agreement this month, sparking a wave of targeted actions by the Trump administration against China.