There’s a difference between setbacks and catastrophes. Huawei losing Google, Intel, and Qualcomm as suppliers is a setback. ARM reportedly cutting ties with the company, on the other hand, could be a bona fide catastrophe.
The BBC today reported that ARM told employees to suspend "all active contracts, support entitlements, and any pending engagements” with Huawei because of the company’s addition to a blacklist by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
ARM didn’t send a new memo in response to the 90-day temporary license the U.S. issued to let Huawei suppliers do business with the company. Instead, ARM warned its employees not to even talk to their counterparts at Huawei unofficially.
Huawei remained hopeful as more and more American companies, ya know, planned to follow U.S. law by no longer working with it. Components? Huawei’s said to have three months’ worth. Operating systems? Huawei’s covered.
China’s semiconductor industry simply isn’t prepared to design and manufacture chips that aren’t based on American tech. Huawei would have to work a miracle to be unaffected by losing the ability to build on top of ARM’s foundation.
With the way things are going, though, we wouldn’t be as surprised as we should be if a report claimed Huawei had been working on wholly original chip designs for a while. This should be a catastrophe; let’s see if Huawei can avert it.
