Chip manufacturer ARM is to resume its supply of chips to Huawei after cutting them off in May thanks to the US-China trade war.
ARMÂ has concluded an investigation by its legal team which found its designs are of UK origin, and supplying the Chinese tech manufacturer with them would not breach the embargo placed on Huawei by the US.
HiSilicon, a Huawei subsidiary that produces the chipsets for the company’s smartphones, use blueprints from ARM chips as a template for their designs.
ARM had ceased agreements with Huawei after concerns were raised that some of their proprietary chip technology originated in the US. Under the Trump administration’s ban on technology with the Chinese government and close business partners (or which Huawei is the most conspicuous) exporting that technology would be a breach of the government’s embargo.
ARM released a statement that the ARM v8 and ARM v9 were both of UK origin, and they would be happy to aid HiSilicon in their future developments.
“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-US origin,”
“Arm has communicated this to the appropriate US government offices, and we continue to be in compliance with the US Commerce Department guidelines, respective to Huawei and its affiliate HiSilicon.”
