Huawei will still get their chip designs from ARM
While Huawei is a company based in China, like many MNCs these days, Huawei does business with a myriad of companies from around the world, the US included. This also means that with the US ban being in effect, it does affect the company’s ability to do business with US-based companies, which in turn affects the products that they put out.
This includes certain components that Huawei uses for its phones, but it seems that on the chipset front, Huawei can rest assured because ARM seems to be more than happy to continue working with them. In a statement provided to Engadget, ARM was quoted as saying:
“ARM can provide support to HiSilicon for the Armv8-A architecture, as well as the next generation of that architecture, following a comprehensive review of both architectures, which have been determined to be of non-U.S. origin.”
This is actually an interesting turn of events because prior to this, ARM had issued a notice to its personnel, informing them to halt all their business dealings with the company. It is possible that ARM wanted to play it safe and explore their options before resuming business again.
Either way, this is good news for Huawei as it means that the company’s own chipsets can continue to be designed and produced. Unfortunately, the jury is still out on Huawei’s future regarding Google Play Services, although last we heard, the company is expected to develop their own apps and services as an alternative.
Source: Engadget