Huawei from September 15 will no longer be able to independently make its own processors and will be forced to ask for help from abroad
The American Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has long included Huawei in the list of technology companies considered a risk to the Nation and President Donald Trump for over a year does nothing but increase the dose in his all-out battle against this company symbol of Chinese dominance in the tech sector.
Trump’s latest “ban” goes far beyond the prohibition for American companies, already in place since mid-2019, to collaborate with blacklisted Chinese companies (such as Huawei): now not even foreign companies can do so, under penalty of losing the possibility to collaborate with US companies. A ban that aims to totally isolate Huawei and kick it out of the club of tech giants within which it has played an important role for several years. In practice, this could lead to the impossibility for Huawei to produce its Hisilicon Kirin SoCs. Or, to be precise, to have them produced by Taiwan’s TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. But Huawei has recently found an unexpected ally: American Qualcomm.
Why TSMC can no longer produce Kirin chips
Trump’s new ban prevents foreign companies from working with Huawei as of September 15. TSMC is the company that physically builds chips for almost every global electronics giant: even Apple, after announcing its goodbye to Intel’s processors, will have its new processors built by this company. Kirin SoCs are designed by Hisilicon, a Huawei group company, but are printed by TSMC (with the participation of other non-Chinese technology suppliers).
TSMC, in turn, produces chips thanks to machinery and technologies largely made in the USA. That’s why the Taiwanese company can’t afford to say no to Trump. Huawei, on the other hand, has no other suppliers available because the chip foundries present in China all have a production process that is too backward to produce the latest generation Kirin 1000.
Qualcomm backs Huawei
According to what the Wall Street Journal reported, Qualcomm is doing in these days a heavy lobbying on the Trump administration so that the sanctions against Huawei can be eased. A few days ago, at the end of July, the two companies in fact put an end to a patent war on 5G and came to an agreement: Huawei will pay $1.8 billion to Qualcomm (which accused it of infringing some of its patents) and will buy electronic components from the former to build its future 5G smartphones.
Or, at least, it will be able to do so if Trump allows it. It is estimated that Qualcomm’s sales to Huawei could be worth up to $8 billion a year. According to Qualcomm if Trump doesn’t loosen the constraints Huawei will be forced to look to China for the alternative and, sooner or later, it will find it.