ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48363772

by yitchelle • 7 years ago

250 227 7 years ago

ckugblenu• 7 years ago

This looks more like a global chess match than anything else.

molteanu2• 7 years ago

This looks like the USA is afraid of China's might, so what else should it do than to fight it's rise and development with all means possible (like it's already doing in the Middle East [1]). Or did you actually think this is all about "democracy", "free markets", "dictators" and the like? When the battle gets rough, big guns show up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_containment

ghobs912• 7 years ago

Or maybe this is retaliation for the billions Chinese companies have made off stolen American IP. Ever thought of that? To imply this is pure protectionism is over simplifying it.

yread• 7 years ago

That seems like a pretty big deal. I wonder if they have a response to that (like the "spare tyres in the safe" [0]). Would be cool if future phones from Huawei ran on China produced MIPS chips

[0] https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/huaweis-chip-arm...

unixhero• 7 years ago

Well RISC v5 is open source.

naraic0o• 7 years ago

I think you mean RISC-V (V being the Roman numeral for 5).

The MIPS ISA is now also open source, as of Q1 2019[0].

[0] https://www.mips.com/mipsopen/

yogthos11• 7 years ago

This could be a really great thing in the long run. I'm really hoping this will promote open hardware and software in the future. Huawei is most likely to start relying on open source tech, since they're under so much scrutiny that's the best way to show they're being above board. Using open software and hardware would also show that same thing couldn't happen with their stack in the future. If they're smart, they'll partner up with some companies in EU to make it an international effort.

US is basically terrified of losing control of mobile networks when 5G ends up being implemented by a Chinese company. They're also clearly doing the exact thing they're accusing China of themselves here. I think that this is going to backfire spectacularly in the long run.

zaphar• 7 years ago

There is one critical difference between America and China here. American companies have for the most part not been engaging in wholesale state sponsored theft of Chinese IP. Whatever you may think of the wisdom of a trade war, no one can really argue that China hasn't given the US all the ammunition it needed to give political cover to engaged in one.

molteanu2• 7 years ago

When you're advanced enough, there is no need for you do to IP. Maybe the risk is not worth it or there is nothing to gain from it. It's the same argument with the open markets. When you're already a developed economy, open markets benefit you since you have the best products, your production facilities are in place and you can offer both quantity, quality and reasonable prices. But when you are a developing nation, protections are needed for key sectors.

US did both of these things. That is, closed markets and protectionism and IP theft. It doesn't matter that, oh, "this was a long time ago, it doesn't count". It does. Advantages add up year after year, century after century. I'm not even trying to defend China, but instead, trying to be clear and honest about how these things work in the real world, regardless of sentiments and your favorite team.

I just did a quick lookup, you can do the same. I'm sure there are more examples out there.

In 1787, American agent Andrew Mitchell was intercepted by British authorities as he was trying to smuggle new technology out of the UK. His trunk was seized after being loaded on board a ship. Inside the trunk were models and drawings of one Britain's great industrial machines. Mitchell himself was able to escape and sought refuge in Denmark. But his mission marks the start of a sustained US campaign to steal technology from the world's hi-tech superpower of the day. [1]

[1] https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-02-18/us-complains-other-na...

yogthos11• 7 years ago

Nobody is going to care about this in the long run, and it's pretty clear that China has already moved past US capabilities with tech like 5G. This will only spur more investment in domestic technology. China has a far better education system, a lot more people, and a government that's able to do long term planning. I expect them to leapfrog US within a decade or so.

simion3149• 7 years ago

I am wondering if the huge IP theft is mostly propaganda similar to the one US uses before it starts a war or changes some government in other country.

Zenst6• 7 years ago

Maybe, but then historically - did China start stealing western IP or did the west? Silkworms, tea, pottery, gunpowder.... many things that got invented in China and in effect stolen by the west.

So you could argue that the west gave China ammunition in the past to go down this route.

Either way - the whole aspect of one country stealing another's secrets in regard to trade and product has a very long history.

What the consumers (the ones affected) really need to be seeing though is a smoking gun. Whilst we are not talking WMD's here, we are talking about the same level of proof being bestowed upon the joe-public. That - does need to change and equally such evidence need to be credible with more than a grain of truth about it.

Sure we have all read and heard and kinda-know what's going on and has gone on, but the public need to be told in a way that is clear cut and removes all doubt.

nicoburns• 7 years ago

Looking at it the other way: America has state sponsored restriction of free use of knowledge. IP law is considered important by America (and it has imposed this everywhere), but it is not straightforwardly a good thing (and I think most people would argue that copyright protection periods are currently too long)

sterlind2• 7 years ago

Until now. The US seems to think Huawei poses a national security threat. Huawei seems to have won on 5G, to the point where UK is considering buying Huawei 5G equipment despite tons of pressure. Therefore, stealing the IP would be a national security priority. I'd bet dollars to donuts the NSA is trying to steal Huawei's 5G IP right now, though it'll be hard since they can't easily tap within China (no fiber links in friendly waters) and CIA's humint presence got rolled up when China hacked their network.

peteretep• 7 years ago

In before "America stole from the British so it's OK" comments! Ah, no, look, I'm three hours late. _А у вас негров линчуют_

gloflo• 7 years ago

Oh look! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Examples_of_industrial...

And no one can argue that the west including the US has given the rest of the world enough ammunition to feel a bit mistreated in the last centuries of exploitation.

AsyncAwait4• 7 years ago

American companies have for the most part not been engaging in wholesale state sponsored theft of Chinese IP.

But they were in theft of European IP when the U.S. was at a similar developmental level than China is now.

mtw• 7 years ago

There is no wholesale theft. Theft is getting something against their will or them not knowing.

China offered foreign corporations to open factories in China, under the condition that's it's done with a local partner. Western companies put IP, funds and many other assets in the joint venture, willingly.

This is the same as American corporations selling tanks and planes to Israel. Now look right now and you have Israeli companies producing latest-gen weapons, with a large portion integrating American design and IP. Where is the outrage?

If you are thinking about groups of hackers hacking into networks and stealing plans and designs, we're more at the stage of McCarthyism hysteria or anti-japanese sentiments in the 80-90s. So far, what's more obvious is state-sponsored Russian hackers, and a bit behind Israeli hackers.

Now at the individual level or at corporation level, it is true there are cases of theft. For example, there are blatant copies of the Mercedes G-Wagon, many other cars and products. Chinese will get a copy of your product and will find a way to sell you a copy for 1/3rd the price. There is no wholesale state sponsored theft, and a large percentage of Chinese companies actually follow the law.

I think people must be very careful currently. You're just being a mouthpiece for Steve Bannon and Trump by writing "wholesale state sponsored theft"

jacquesm3• 7 years ago

American companies have for the most part not been engaging in wholesale state sponsored theft of Chinese IP.

That's because the Chinese don't have IP worth stealing. But there have been quite a few documented cases of the US stealing IP from European countries that they thought was worth stealing...

0815test• 7 years ago

Huawei is most likely to start relying on open source tech

If only. So far they've been very much the opposite, even in comparison to other CN companies! Which is one key reason why this whole kerfuffle is going to be so much of a problem for them. In theory, they would have plenty to gain by retooling towards open solutions - but everything so far implies that they won't!

yogthos11• 7 years ago

Possible, but they're in a completely different situation now where their credibility is under threat. Before they were just another phone company, now they have to prove that their technology is above board.

kristianc2• 7 years ago

Huawei is most likely to start relying on open source tech, since they're under so much scrutiny that's the best way to show they're being above board.

Most of the Shenzhen ecosystem is based on open-source ideas and tech, and China has seen an enormous level of innovation by doing so. Why should they partner / share with EU economies who are trying to regulate them out of existence?

yogthos11• 7 years ago

Partnering up with EU helps legitimize them outside China, and opens up a huge market. If they're already partnering up to do 5G deployment in EU, it makes sense to continue creating closer ties.

eleitl2• 7 years ago

They're also clearly doing the exact thing they're accusing China of themselves here.

Indeed, it's widely known that Cisco/Juniper is pretty much in bed with the US intelligence, and so is Microsoft.

It is also not very smart to antagonize a world power that you also need for a lot of critical components, including lots of modern fabs.

mschuster912• 7 years ago

It is also not very smart to antagonize a world power that you also need for a lot of critical components, including lots of modern fabs.

That requires the ability to think and plan long term, which many recent US presidencies have lacked.

thommark• 7 years ago

I don't think EU will trust Huawei at all. Recently my country Netherlands has found backdoors in Huawei equipments https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-huawei-tech/d... . and the biggest telecom in my country just banned huawei in its 5G network. I am sure this will prompt more countries to reject Huawei, especially if one of the bigger countries like Italy, France, or Spain rejects them.

alexeiz• 7 years ago

I'm yet to see any concrete details of those "backdoors" they found in the Huawei equipment. I'm not saying there aren't any. But no concrete evidence of them surfaced yet. So far it's just some bullshit from the press that has zero knowledge of technology.

A2017U1• 7 years ago

Recently my country Netherlands has found backdoors

That's not what that article says at all.

Meanwhile: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/evidence-of-backdoors-i...

tssva• 7 years ago

"US is basically terrified of losing control of mobile networks when 5G ends up being implemented by a Chinese company."

US companies don't control the mobile network device business now and won't after this. The largest beneficiaries of this are European.

writepub• 7 years ago

This optimistic hand waving is all OK - but starting in 90 days, when the US embargo kicks in, WHAT architecture will Huawei chips (Kirin?) use, when will they be designed and production ready and who will want Huawei phones with brand spaning new architecture instead of relying on decades mature ARM chips?

mark_l_watson2• 7 years ago

Hopefully not too off topic: I am in the USA and I have always wondered how long we could hold on to having the world’s reserve currency. I have to wonder if even some of our close allies take pause in my government’s ability to economically attack commercial competitors like Huawei, and in the past the ‘axis of evil’ oil producing countries that had announced their willingness to sell oil in currencies other than the US dollar.

I am concerned this is going to eventually backfire on us.

awt• 7 years ago

It will and is. Every time the US attempts to control what can be purchased with dollars, it advances the process of turning the USD into a kind of Chuck E. Cheese token.

chii• 7 years ago

I am in the USA and I have always wondered how long we could hold on to having the world’s reserve currency.

until the US cannot maintain superior millitary power.

I am concerned this is going to eventually backfire on us.

it certainly will, the same way any collapsing superpower "backfires". The brunt of it will be felt by the citizens, while the rich and powerful would have an "out".

pjmlp• 7 years ago

I am pretty sure trying to face China on that front will have quite a different outcome than securing oil sources in Middle East countries, sadly for the whole planet.

rswail• 7 years ago

Being the reserve currency is not relevant to the industrial trade war underway. The US's power here is in its consumer market and its ability to impact other nations by threatening them with secondary boycotts.

EU companies have no reason not to trade with Iran under the JCPOA, but US law says that any company that does cannot trade with the US. That's not the currency controlling, it's the trade.

There may be legitimate security concerns about 5G and its ability to be penetrated. On that basis, doesn't that mean that the design of 5G is inherently flawed?

That is the issue.

sigmar• 7 years ago

So what is going to happen with the Hisilicon[1] chips? Do they still get to keep using all the licenses they already agreed to? What will they do when they next cortex implementation comes out? Copy it?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiSilicon

sanxiyn14• 7 years ago

HiSilicon already developed their own ARM64 core (not Cortex) in Kunpeng 920, although it is a server chip and not a mobile chip. I think HiSilicon is entirely capable of developing (not copying) their own core.

0xcde4c3db• 7 years ago

The thing about ARM is that they more or less act like they own the ISA itself, and have a huge patent portfolio. There's an expectation that a company have an "architecture license" to make their own ARM-compatible core from scratch (unless it's an obsolete version of the ISA, e.g. Amber [1]). So while you're right that Cortex per se isn't relevant, there's still a question of whether HiSilicon will legally be able to sell any new ARM-compatible core they design.

[1] https://opencores.org/projects/amber

tyingq2• 7 years ago

Maybe a boost for RISCV.

b_tterc_p• 7 years ago

The article says ARM doesn’t manufacture the chips but licenses out the tech. Does Huawei manufacture it? Is there any reason for Huawei to not just take their last known tech spec and start producing and developing it in house?

sanxiyn14• 7 years ago

HiSilicon (fully owned subsidary of Huawei) designs SoC and TSMC manufactures it.

Tepix2• 7 years ago

There are probably some important limitations in the license granted to HiSilicon. They may not be able to do everything they want. Also they may not be able to keep up with the designs as developed by ARM.

smallstepforman• 7 years ago

ARM management are shooting themseves in the head here, this will divert Huawei funds to Risc-V instead. Time to dump ARM shares.

deepaksurti• 7 years ago

ARM is no longer publicly listed, it is a private subsidiary of Soft Bank group.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Holdings

baybal23• 7 years ago

Well, you can still find a PE broker yourself

simonh3• 7 years ago

I'm afraid this theory fails the reality test. If it was that easy, and that certain Huawei would succeed and surpass ARM, they would have done it already and wouldn't need to be forced into it.

imtringued4• 7 years ago

There are a lot of things that could happen but there is no reason for them to happen. Provide the reason and they will happen.

dharma12• 7 years ago

How long would it take Huawei (or a bunch of Chinese companies) to develop MIPS or RISC-V based phones? Too long to run out of cash (given that their sales for the foreseeable future just cratered) - or doable?

sanxiyn14• 7 years ago

I think Huawei can fund RISC-V phone development from their telecommunication equipment business. Their revenue is roughly split half and half between telecom and smartphone.

dharma12• 7 years ago

yep, I expect their basestations use ARM extensively too.

Still, I wonder what the timeline would be for a production ready RISC-V chipset. They might be out of business before it's ready

Symmetry• 7 years ago

I'd guess on the order of 5 years. Taking silicon from idea to mass production is something that takes a long time and this isn't something that Huawei has done before.

EDIT: Apparently Huawei has been developing their own ARM cores via architectural liscence so they might be able to hack together a poor solution in less time than that by sticking with ARM in the short term and they might be able to get a decent MIPS SoC (for pre-existing Android compatibility) working in less time than 5 years.

sanxiyn14• 7 years ago

Not just developing. They did a tapeout.

Matthias247• 7 years ago

The CPU is however also only one part of the puzzle, and they need all the peripherals (and especially: Modems!) too.

sanxiyn14• 7 years ago

Huawei has their own modem.

Tepix2• 7 years ago

Just wow. Is ARM doing its share of anticipatory obedience?

China is not going to keep still. My expectation is that they will support Huawei (and other chinese companies) in a big way to establish alternatives to ARM, Android, Windows (?) and other technologies missheld from them.

Copyright is being used similar to DRM. Companies will take notice. This promises to be good for Open Source, perhaps also Open Hardware.

DCKing3• 7 years ago

I see a lot of people dreaming about Huawei needing to pivot to open source technology, but the overwhelmingly likely outcome here is that the trade dispute gets (partially) resolved to the extent that Huawei can operate as usual again.

Dreaming of Huawei backed RISC V SoCs is a pipe dream anyway, at least for mobile processors. For a mobile SoC you need a GPU as well. There are no viable open source GPU architectures, and all vendors are US-based (Vivante, Broadcom (?), AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Intel, only the first three ever do licensing deals) or UK based (ARM (Mali), PowerVR).

jason0597• 7 years ago

ARM's now owned by Softbank (Japanese), so it's not even British anymore

shard• 7 years ago

Vivante was a US company in name only (engineering in China) and after acquisition in China (by Verisilicon, whose founder and CEO is the brother of the founder and CEO of Vivante), it's not even a US company in name.

Also, other US companies with GPUs besides the first 3 in your list are are open to licensing if the fees are big enough. I can't give more details than that though.

desdiv• 7 years ago

Also, other US companies with GPUs besides the first 3 in your list are are open to licensing if the fees are big enough.

This is a news story about a UK company being prohibited from dealing with Huawei due to its products containing "US origin technology". So I'm assuming that US GPU companies would also be prohibited from licensing to Huawei due to their IP's "US origin".

0-_-0• 7 years ago

PowerVR is now owned by Canyon Bridge, which is backed by China.

tyingq2• 7 years ago

The rhetoric is pretty strong around Huwaei. What sort of PR exchange do you see that resolves this, with them continuing to use ARM with a blessing from Google, the oval office, etc?

throw6678433• 7 years ago

Not PR, but actually money and lobbying. Maybe promise a factory in some key cities and states.

sanxiyn14• 7 years ago

You know what? This was posted TODAY.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=SiFive-R...

imtringued4• 7 years ago

It's a pipe dream but now there is a reason for it to happen. Previously the Chinese could just strike a deal with western businesses now they are forced to rely on their own competence.

eleitl2• 7 years ago

As if RISC-V needed any PR.

kbumsik2• 7 years ago

Now I'm wondering what will happens to ESP8266/ESP32. ESP8266 is a Wi-Fi SoC which was extremely popular in hobbyist world, and its successor, ESP32, is widely accepted in industry too. Will it have any impact on companies that use ESP such as Particle [1] and Arduino?

[1] https://www.particle.io/

sanxiyn14• 7 years ago

I don't think so. Espressif is not Huawei.

kbumsik2• 7 years ago

But it's a Chinese SoC company. I'm wondering if the fight between US and China will widen to any SoC companies in the long term.

turbinerneiter• 7 years ago

These are not made by Huawei and do not use ARM cores.

They are made by Espressif and use Tensilica cores.

Tensilica is a US company, owned by Cadence. I don't know of any ties between Espressif and Huawei.

captainbland• 7 years ago

It's a pretty bold move by ARM to stop working with Huawei even if it does believe that it's affected by the American ban. It seems like it's very likely to damage their image in the eyes of other non-western technology firms who could end up on America's radar. Won't a lot of execs be scratching their heads thinking, "what if we're next to be cut off in this trade war?"

simonh3• 7 years ago

If it is subject to the ban, it would be a pretty bold move to ignore it and carry on in violation of US law. Not an easy position to be in.

greatpatton2• 7 years ago

Yeah like US rules the world and US laws should apply to everyone! Then don't be surprised if the rest of the world prefer Chinese because as of today the last imperialistic power is the USA. By the way nobody outside of the US voted for your smart president.

zhte4152• 7 years ago

If it does or does not believe it is affected by the ban, it's bankers will tell it that it is yes involved.

s3bast0m• 7 years ago

Softbank is trying to merge T-Mobile with the Sprint in the US. Pretty easy to put "some" pressure on a said company by the US government.

Waterluvian• 7 years ago

I wonder if this all makes Huawei grumble and feel the costs of the kind of government they work under. I wonder if it has any effect towards more liberalism in China.

als0• 7 years ago

ARM has design centers in the USA so this doesn’t surprise me.

xvilka• 7 years ago

Hopefully, it will not only boost RISC-V adoption, but also the FOSS EDA[1][2][3] tools, FPGA[4][5] and ASIC[6][7][8] design tools, various high-level languages, and toolkits to work with hardware designs. You can also follow my idea[9] and initiative to create low-level hardware IR instead of al tools parsing or producing Verilog/VHDL. Apparently, both are a pretty bad fit for chip design, thus many high-level languages[10] were created.

[1] KiCAD http://kicad-pcb.org/

[2] Qucs https://github.com/Qucs/qucs

[3] gEDA http://www.geda-project.org/

[4] Yosys https://github.com/YosysHQ/yosys

[5] SymbiFlow https://symbiflow.github.io

[6] The OpenROAD https://theopenroadproject.org

[7] The OpenROAD https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project

[8] Chisel3 https://github.com/freechipsproject/chisel3

[9] https://github.com/SymbiFlow/ideas/issues/19

[10] https://github.com/drom/awesome-hdl

rement• 7 years ago

What about Motorola Mobility? Their main focus is on consumer electronics (mostly smartphones) but it is also a Chinese owned company. Is the main concern with Huawei the telecom and networking equipment?

sanxiyn14• 7 years ago

Yes, I think it is mostly about Huawei, not about Chinese companies in general.

zhangshine• 7 years ago

As a Chinese, I am hoping our government will invest more money in high-tech industries rather than real estate. It is a chance for China to escape the middle income trap.

Iv• 7 years ago

To all the people thinking geopolitics, please just remember that ARM is owned by Softbank now. For this kind of decisions, this is a Japanese company.

sanxiyn14• 7 years ago

For this case, the relevant information is that ARM has a design center at San Jose. The news is, in a sense, unsurprising.

walshemj4• 7 years ago

This is interesting I was listening to onw of the War on the rocks podcasts and their commentary was that the commerce department has to produce in < 150 days the details of what this will mean.

Everyone seems to be jumping the gun here "working towards the president maybe"

mirimir3• 7 years ago

He said it would greatly affect the firm's ability to develop its own chips, many of which are currently built with ARM’s underlying technology, for which it pays a licence.

Maybe China could just change its laws to void ARM's patents. Then Huawei wouldn't need to worry about licensing.

Extreme, I know. But China will very likely, at some point, need to counter this somehow.

Edit: I wonder if China could afford a trade boycott against the US. Also, doesn't it own tons of US bonds? What if it had a fire sale on them? How would that affect the US?

sgift• 7 years ago

If I read it correctly the patents aren't the main problem, more that no one from ARM is allowed to work with Huawei anymore. No support with problems, no influence on the design of future ARM products, no custom modifications. These things are probably as valuable - or even more - than the licensed tech itself.

mirimir3• 7 years ago

Maybe so. But there are ways to get support off-the-record, if you're willing to pay enough.

ac29• 7 years ago

I wonder if China could afford a trade boycott against the US. Also, doesn't it own tons of US bonds? What if it had a fire sale on them? How would that affect the US?

Most people overestimate this. Of the $22T US Debt, only $6T is held by all foreign accounts combined, $1T of which is held by China. The majority of US Debt is held domestically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_St...

manacit• 7 years ago

Indeed, the bond market is liquid and deep. If China wanted to dump the Treasuries they own, the US could easily opt to buy them back to prop the price up as a method of last resort, which would likely not have a huge impact.

It would probably hurt them in the long term if anything - weakening the dollar makes their export-driven economy more expensive, ultimately stifling growth.

NotPaidToPost2• 7 years ago

A company needs to worry about licensing in every country it intends to sell its products...

lisk1• 7 years ago

The thing US dont understand at this point is that companies outside of US are willing to exchange IPs with Chinese, which means that companies that are not dependent on US technologies will benefit greatly from this ban. Too impulsive decision by the US but they are too focused to be not outrun. Well only the time will tell

imtringued4• 7 years ago

I bet this will backfire. ARM isn't exactly known for building fast CPUs, therefore there is a lot of room for a slightly worse but cheaper competitor that designs the SoCs in China from start to finish.

achina_001• 7 years ago

As a Chinese and arm employee here, the ban makes me feel shame on the original motivation of creating the joint venture between local govement and arm, which is trying to help local companies like Huawei to work around the exactly ban like this.

Arm China really does a bad job. Besides, its empolyee turn over rate also rise to about more than 40% from 5% since the creation of Arm China due to the bad management:(

ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

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