American Semiconductor Industry Association: upgrading Huawei’s “restriction order” will bring serious damage to the industry

On August 18, John Neuffer, chairman and CEO of the American Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), issued the following statement on his website in response to the new changes in export control rules announced by the United States after the US Department of Commerce announced further restrictions on the use of US technology and software by Huawei and its affiliated companies. < / P > < p > “we are still evaluating the rule, but broad restrictions on the sale of commercial chips will cause serious damage to the U.S. semiconductor industry.” John Neuffer said the semiconductor industry association of the United States was surprised and concerned by the sudden shift in the U.S. government’s support for a more limited form of restriction aimed at achieving the so-called U.S. national security goals while reducing harm to U.S. companies. On August 17, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced a new round of sanctions against Huawei. The first is to further restrict Huawei’s ability to acquire U.S. technology, focusing on restricting the chips designed by enterprises outside the United States with us software, and the second is to add 38 Huawei affiliated enterprises to the entity list, mainly involving Huawei cloud, bringing the number of Huawei’s enterprises under export control to 152. < / P > < p > from the perspective of the upgraded regulations, first of all, if the US software or technology is the basis for the production of a product in other countries, and the product will be included in, or used in the “production” or “R & D” process of any “parts”, “components” or “equipment” produced, purchased or ordered by Huawei and its affiliated companies in the entity list, the transaction will be subject to FDP restrictions. Secondly, when Huawei and its affiliated companies on the entity list are parties to such transactions (i.e., the purchase of semiconductor products directly produced with us software and Technology), such as “buyer”, “intermediate consignee”, “final receiver” or “end user”, will also be subject to FDP restrictions. < / P > < p > “this amendment will further limit Huawei’s ability to acquire foreign chips, which will be subject to the same restrictions as US chips, as long as they are developed or manufactured with us software or technology.” Statement by the U.S. Department of Commerce. < / P > < p > regarding the new regulations of the United States, John Neuffer reiterated SIA’s view that the sale of non sensitive commercial products to China will promote the research and innovation of domestic semiconductors in the United States, which is crucial to the economic strength and national security of the United States. < p > < p > since the first round of ban was issued last year, according to incomplete statistics, American enterprises have submitted about 300 license applications to the US government, and about a quarter of the total applications have been approved. But in key areas such as 5g, chip level cooperation is still difficult. It is reported that Qualcomm is still actively lobbying the U.S. government to lift the restrictions on the sale of parts to China. In a previous earnings call, CEO Steve molenkopf said that the company was working hard to find out how to sell products to every OEM, including Huawei. < / P > < p > in the view of analysts, the United States has chosen to adopt the “most extreme” way to open the Pandora’s box, which will affect the long-term trend of the global semiconductor industry chain. In a report released in March this year, BCG pointed out that the US restrictions on Sino US technology trade may end its leading position in the semiconductor field. If the United States completely forbids semiconductor companies to sell products to Chinese customers, their global market share will lose 18% and their revenue will lose 37%, which will actually lead to the United States Decoupling from Chinese technology. < / P > < p > according to the report, if the global share of us semiconductor companies falls to about 30%, the United States will transfer its long-term global semiconductor leadership to South Korea or China. Fundamentally, there is a risk that the United States may have to rely heavily on foreign suppliers to meet its own domestic demand for semiconductors. Annual R & D spending is expected to decrease by 30% to 60%, and U.S. industry may no longer be able to provide the technological advances necessary to meet the future needs of U.S. defense and national security systems. < p > < p > on Monday local time, some U.S. technology chip stocks fell slightly, of which Qualcomm shares fell 1.37% to US $112.18, micron fell 0.83% to US $45.22, and applied materials fell 1.01% to US $66.94. < / P > < p > according to the detailed rules of the ban issued by the United States before, although Huawei Kirin chips are difficult to produce, it does not affect the third-party chip design enterprises to provide standard products to China. Among them, MediaTek is regarded as the biggest beneficiary of the outsourcing chip scheme. However, the new regulations in the United States have raised doubts about the continued cooperation between the company and Huawei. In response to this, faced with the first finance reporter’s response, the company has always followed the provisions of Global trade related laws and regulations, and is paying close attention to the changes in the US export control rules, and consulting external legal advisers to obtain the latest provisions for legal analysis in real time, so as to ensure the compliance of relevant rules. < / P > < p > “a month ago, MediaTek updated the latest flagship mobile phone chip roadmap for Chinese customers, and many specifications were dominated by Huawei’s specifications.” A source told the first finance and economics reporter that there is a serious shortage of 5g chips in MediaTek. It is reported that Huawei has recently ordered 120 million chips from MediaTek, and seven of the mobile phones released this year all use the chips. An analyst who did not want to be named told reporters that the US Department of commerce document did not clarify how to define “basis”, and whether chip manufacturers such as MediaTek or Samsung are included (restricted) still need further interpretation. “It depends on the definition of the United States. If technology is defined as 1%, not only chip companies in Taiwan, but also supply chain companies in Japan and South Korea will be affected.” < p > < p > according to the statistics of Fomalhaut technology solutions, the 5g version of Huawei’s top-end smartphone “mate 30” has increased from about 25% to about 42% in terms of amount compared with the original model before the sanctions. On the other hand, parts made in the United States fell from about 11% to about 1%. Instead, Huawei designed its own products and purchased them from suppliers outside the United States such as Japan. < p > < p > Huawei chairman Liang Hua disclosed last year that Huawei’s total purchase amount from Japanese enterprises in 2019 will reach 1.2 trillion yen (77 billion yuan), almost equivalent to Huawei’s purchase amount from American suppliers in 2018. < / P > < p > “but the suppression and upgrading of the United States will undoubtedly affect the choice of Japanese and Korean enterprises.” The above analysts told reporters that the United States still has a strong sense of vigilance against Huawei, and the sanctions will not be reduced in the short term. However, at the previous annual report communication meeting held by Huawei, Xu Zhijun, chairman of the rotating chairman of Huawei, once made a response to the US restrictions on chip manufacturers’ supply to Huawei. Xu Zhijun said that if the U.S. government can arbitrarily modify the “foreign direct product rules”, it will actually damage the global technological ecology. If the Chinese government takes counter measures, what kind of impact will it have on the industry? If the deduction goes on, this destructive chain effect will be surprising. If Huawei < / P > opens the box, it may destroy the ecology of more than one enterprise.