US Commerce Department reveals new set of Huawei chip bans
The US government has revoked licenses that let companies including Intel and Qualcomm sell their chips to Chinese telco firm Huawei.
This is merely the latest sanction to be directly targeted at Huawei, which came under suspicion from the US when it began selling 5G network equipment at the turn of the decade. That triggered a wave a sanctions designed to prevent Huawei from developing competitive technologies.
It appears that the new restrictions will not prevent Intel and Qualcomm from selling to Huawei, but will make it much harder. They will have to apply for a difficult-to-obtain license before shipping. “We have revoked certain licenses for exports to Huawei,” the US Commerce Department said in a statement, declining to specify which ones it had withdrawn.
While these new sanctions might hurt Huawei, there is evidence that the firm is working around them. In the consumer space, Huawei recently launched its Pura 70 series smartphones comprising an advanced made-in-China processor – the Kirin 9010 processor made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.
Reports said the Kirin 9010 was fabricated using SMIC’s so-called 7nm N+2 process. This is an enhanced version of SMIC's typical 7nm manufacturing process, and is evidence that China's ability to fabricate advanced chips is accelerating.
