The US Department of Commerce tightened Huawei’s ban again to try to “block” the outsourcing chip scheme

On August 17, US local time, the Bureau of industry and security (BIS) of the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a revised ban on Huawei. The ban further restricted Huawei’s products made with us technology and software, and added 38 Huawei subsidiaries to the entity list. < / P > < p > “the new rules clearly stipulate that any use of us software or US made equipment is prohibited and requires a license.” In an interview, commerce secretary Wilbur Ross said in an interview that restrictions were imposed on chips designed by Huawei in May, but Huawei took some evasive measures. < / P > < p > in this ban, the U.S. Department of Commerce has added several new rules. For example, products based on us software and technology cannot be used to manufacture or develop parts, components or equipment produced, purchased or ordered by any Huawei subsidiary (entity list). In addition, the regulation also restricts Huawei in the list of entities from participating in relevant transactions as “buyer”, “intermediate consignee”, “final receiver” or “end user”, provided that permission is obtained. U.S. Secretary of state pompeio said the State Department strongly supports the Department of Commerce’s expansion of its foreign direct product rules today, which will prevent Huawei from circumventing U.S. laws through alternative chip production programs and access to generic chips made with U.S. tools. Jia Mo, an analyst at canalys, told the first finance reporter that this was based on the fact that the new ban in May this year restricted more explicit and strict regulations. It basically blocked Huawei’s way to buy chips directly from other chip manufacturers using American technology. Each cooperation needs to be approved by the U.S. Department of Commerce and get a license. < / P > < p > “the U.S. Department of commerce wants to further monitor the business transactions between the listed enterprises (based on software or technology in the United States) and any entity of Huawei, etc.” Jia Mo told reporters. However, Jia Mo also stressed that the document did not clarify how to define “basis”, so whether or not chip manufacturers such as MediaTek or Samsung were included still needs further interpretation. Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business, previously said at the 100 people’s Conference on China’s informatization held on August 7, that the domestic semiconductor technology has not caught up, and the mate 40 Kirin 9000 chip is likely to become the last generation of Kirin high-end chips. Huawei’s Kirin series chips, the world’s leading chipset, can’t be made after September 15 due to U.S. sanctions. According to the reporter’s understanding, the sales ranking of global semiconductor equipment manufacturers in 2019 released by semiconductor consulting company VLSI research shows that applied materials, ASML of the Netherlands, Lam research of the United States and Tokyo electronics of Japan show that Electron and KLA Tencor occupy the top five in the global integrated circuit equipment market, and the United States occupies three. Without these devices, the semiconductor foundry cannot produce chips. In June, SMIC pointed out that in May 2020, the US Department of Commerce revised the foreign produced direct product According to the revised rules, a number of semiconductor equipment and technologies imported from the United States may not be used for the production and manufacture of products for certain customers before obtaining the administrative license from the U.S. Department of Commerce. On July 16, at TSMC’s second quarter financial report meeting, TSMC Chairman Liu Deyin said that as far as the current situation is concerned, TSMC will not plan to ship wafers to China after September 14. However, according to the ban rules issued by the United States before, Huawei Kirin chip is difficult to produce, but it will not affect the third-party chip design enterprises to provide standard products to Huashi. China’s mobile phone company
Xu Zhijun, chairman of the rotating board of HUAWEI, told reporters this year that even if the chip was banned, the HUAWEI could also produce chips from Samsung, Taiwan, China and China’s chip sales, even if HUAWEI had made sacrifices because it could not produce chips for a long time, and believed that there would be many chips in mainland China. Enterprises grow up. Huawei can also develop and produce products from chip manufacturers in Korea, Japan, Europe and Taiwan. On the evening of August 7, the side of MediaTek said to reporters from China first finance and economics that more high-end chips will be launched by the end of the year and next year, but it is not convenient to comment on the relevant information of a single customer. At present, MediaTek can take orders from Huawei. < / 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 reporters. 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. Previously, Samsung insiders also told reporters that the market changes caused by Huawei had become one of the important topics in the internal meeting of Samsung Electronics. “Samsung Electronics is discussing how to expand its customer base and improve its technical competitiveness.” The person said. < p > < p > subject to the U.S. ban, U.S. chip giant Qualcomm is still unable to cooperate with Huawei on 5g chips. But in the early hours of July 30, Qualcomm announced that it had signed a long-term patent license agreement with Huawei and would receive a $1.8 billion retroactive payment in the fourth quarter. < / P > < p > 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 > but in the view of analysts, the U.S. ban means that the previous “loopholes” will be fixed, and all companies using U.S. basic technology and software will be subject to the ban. < / P > < p > it is worth noting that 38 Huawei related subsidiaries have been added to the list of entities, most of which are Huawei cloud organizations, as well as Huawei’s research institutions in many countries.