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China Government Businesses United States Hardware

US Officials Reportedly Agree To Cut Off Huawei From Global Chip Suppliers (cnet.com) 106

Senior U.S. government officials have agreed to new rules to cut off Huawei from global chip suppliers, according to a Reuters report Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter. CNET reports: Under the new measures, foreign companies that use American chipmaking equipment would first need to secure a license before supplying some chips to Huawei, the report says. The focus of the new rules is to restrict the sale of more sophisticated chips to the Chinese telecom giant rather than generic, more widely available chips. Trump hasn't signed off on the proposed new measures yet, but if he does, a slew of US tech companies stand to lose, like Apple and Qualcomm along with Huawei. It could also negatively impact the world's largest chipmaker, Taiwan's TSMC, the report says.
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US Officials Reportedly Agree To Cut Off Huawei From Global Chip Suppliers

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  • Good luck! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Halueth ( 776646 ) on Friday March 27, 2020 @08:48PM (#59880602)
    It will just force other countries to begin making their own foundries, leaving the US with competition once this thing blows over. Today it's Huawei, tomorrow it's some other corp. The only thing this shows, is that you cannot trust the US anymore when it comes to it. The "built on home soil" will be come more and more clear and will let the Western Countries giving a run for its money later in the future.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      I agree that this is poorly timed.

      However, it is time that the world, particularly the US and the EU, makes a coordinated effort to deal with the level of industrial espionage and out and out patent theft in which China engages.

      Also, a chip fab is not something that you just throw together in a couple of months and any country fabbing chips for which they do not have patent ownership or license would need to dealt with appropriately on the world stage.
      • Well maybe China will contemplate taking back their offshore island and TSMC if the US is going to start hostile acts against them. If you cannot monitor and lock down a network with someones elses equipment in it then I seriously doubt that you have the skill to keep someone out of your networks no matter who builds it. This fake war on Huawei is begining to get out of hand, stop it.

        • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          Well maybe China will contemplate taking back their offshore island

          Its not their Island, rather its the other way around. Mainland China is a legitimate territory of Taiwan. The ROC is a legitimate elected by the people for the people government, the PRC on the other hand is the product of a terrorist up rising and land grab followed by decades of brutal oppression. The PRC has exactly as much legitimacy to rule China as ISIS had to control the territories they did at their peak. Power is their only argument.

          PRC action against the legitimate exiled ROC government in Ta

          • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            I've heard of another large continental nation that resulted from a terrorist uprising against their legitimate, island-based government.

          • by Megol ( 3135005 )

            The stupidity meter is deep into the red.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • by Cyberax ( 705495 )

            The real question is "can they?"

            Yes, without a doubt. China will have to expend a lot of effort but the outcome is not in doubt. No amount of military hardware will help if the other country has comparable hardware and the army that is literally 10x in size.

            • Taiwan would not have to win. All they would have to do is delay China for a day or three. Then Uncle Sam swoops in and freedom the shit out of another country. China would not have a leg to stand on in the world stage and while the UN would tisk tisk... China would be sent packing back to their original boarders after having lost their entire navy, what ever land and air forces they invested in the invasion, a major amount of 'face' AND face sanctions that would make even Iran go 'damn bro you dun fucked u
              • by Cyberax ( 705495 )

                Then Uncle Sam swoops in and freedom the shit out of another country.

                China has nukes. And anti-air defenses. And enough navy to cover the invasion over the Taiwan Straight. So no "liberty bombings" this time.

                China would not have a leg to stand on in the world stage and while the UN would tisk tisk..

                China is a permanent member of the Security Council of the UN. They can also depend on support from Russia.

                China would be sent packing back to their original boarders after having lost their entire navy, what ever land and air forces they invested in the invasion, a major amount of 'face' AND face sanctions that would make even Iran go 'damn bro you dun fucked up'. Its why they may saber rattle from time to time but will (probably) never do anything about the 'Taiwan issue'.

                You've no idea what you're talking about.

                • Yeah, he does. The US Navy utterly dominates the world's oceans, and could more than likely establish a blockade on China's shores for a very long time, all while staying out of China's reach. We wouldn't need to project any kind of military power over mainland China, merely depriving their economy of its main source of revenue is enough to cause Xi Jinping to lose everything.

                  • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
                    Blockade means a full-scale war with China. It probably can't be won without overwhelmingly bad consequences (nuclear kind of bad).

                    Meanwhile, a mere blockade won't stop China from occupying Taiwan. So what's realistically will happen is China occupying and annexing Taiwan, the US imposing blockade and quietly removing it after a couple of years.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Probably give China a very large excuse to annex Taiwan
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • No, only the US nutjobbery.
        People here in the EU can stand the USA's shit less and less anymore. And we're past being your vassals. Most people here oppose the USA nowadays. Against our wishes, mind you. We wanna be friends. But you keep being dicks.
        And all we can see is you treating us like China too. Which is probably the best way to unite us with China and Russia, against you, which we would otherwise never do and don't want to.

        TL;DR: Before calling others dicks, stop being a dick yourself. Yes, even to

        • No, only the US nutjobbery.
          People here in the EU can stand the USA's shit less and less anymore. And we're past being your vassals. Most people here oppose the USA nowadays. Against our wishes, mind you. We wanna be friends. But you keep being dicks.
          And all we can see is you treating us like China too. Which is probably the best way to unite us with China and Russia, against you, which we would otherwise never do and don't want to.

          TL;DR: Before calling others dicks, stop being a dick yourself. Yes, even to other dicks. So we can tell a difference.

          And you aren't ever being dicks? Seriously?

          Well, for starters, why is fascism rising in popularity in Europe?

          https://www.theguardian.com/co... [theguardian.com]

          Why is it that Jews can't wear any religious clothing without being assaulted in Europe where they can do it openly here?

          https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/... [hrw.org]

          And then there's the whole Brexit thing. Either the UK were dicks, or the rest of the EU were dicks. Either way, they were part of the EU when it happened. Why did Switzerland withdraw their application to join the E

      • The patent system is rotten and dysfunctional. US Patent office is allowing joke patents to be registered, and all high tech companies have registered tens or hundreds thousands of patents with the sole purpose so that they don't sue each other. Such a waste and inefficiency. In fact, as you start accusing Huawei of infringing on any patents, it may easily turn out that Samsung, Apple, Microsoft, or some other US company is infringing on Huawei's patents. That shouldn't be grounds of any sort of "war". If t

    • Re:Good luck! (Score:5, Informative)

      by DesertNomad ( 885798 ) on Friday March 27, 2020 @09:27PM (#59880706)

      Dude, most of "our founderies" are in China. We outsourced the majority of it back in the 2000's, and much of it to China, Maylasia, and Singapore.

      • I don't believe the US even has the technology for making nm chips. ASML if I recall correctly is the only company on the fab tech, and they'll sell to anyone.

    • You think the Chinese are using any chips from US foundries other than Intel's desktop hardware that doesn't really have anything to do with Huawei?
      • Intel and its US foundries don't matter. The blow is against Huawei mobile chips for smartphones and base stations. Those are made by TSMC in Taiwan which would fall under this ban too.
        • Well this will pose an unfortunate conundrum to the Chinese as technically Taiwan is part of China from their own perspective. Perhaps the US intends triggering them into enforcing their legitimate territorial rights over Taiwan. This is madness. One can only assume that the intention of the current US administration and it's military industrial complex is to move towards a cold war with China as a means of furthering a trade war. This is insane, particularly as the US needs to buy medical equipment from Ch

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by gtall ( 79522 )

            " legitimate territorial rights over Taiwan" Oh, you mean like the legitimate rights over Tibet that the Chinese exercised? And continue to do so moving Han Chinese into Tibet so that in 100 years, there are no native Tibetans left.

            The CCP has no legitimate rights to anything. They deserve to be first up against the wall.

        • Except there is currently more than enough demand from others that TSMC will easily fill any gap. At worst they might have to repurpose some semi-custom lines.

        • Read again the comment I was replying to. Also, TSMC is not a US company. Considering that and the fact that China is apparently a more important customer to TSMC than anyone else at the moment, the decision of the US government to piss off TSMC could prove devastating to major US companies.
    • They cannot build their own foundries. ASML is the only supplier for the machines foundries need.

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

      While they are incorporated in the Netherlands, they are still under the influence of the US since it's a US vasall country. So the US will simply forbid them to deliver their machines to China or chinese fabs.

      If they don't comply, they won't be able to supply any machines to any US fab or US' ally fab, ie none in the western world and none to Korea, Japan or Taiwan either.

      • The US vassal country may feel differently about instructions from the US administration given that the US currently treats its friends like enemies.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Freischutz ( 4776131 )

          The US vassal country may feel differently about instructions from the US administration given that the US currently treats its friends like enemies.

          Which is why one has to wonder why the US administration thinks it can plan a global Huawei boycott as if they still have friends and allies who will comply when Trump asks them to boycott Huawei and join his asinine trade war on China. The Trump administration has made a point of systematically insulting and alienating every single one of the network of now former US Allies. Previous US efforts to destroy Huawei as a commercial entity have met with lukewarm interest beyond the borders of the US and this w

        • Yes, BeNeLux feels treated like an enemy of the USA too, nowadays. We just see a four year old dick on a romp, thrashing the room called USA and the apartment called Earth, and we're in the kitchen here, thinking how to make him go to his room. Which would have been done already, didn't he have a large Mech of shit people around him enabling his roll in the first place. (Nobody would give a shit about Trump, if he was a bankrupt casino owner bum on the street corner, yelling about dem foreigners. It's you [

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Yep, we have already seen moves to cut out US technology accelerate. The longer this goes on the more business the US loses and it's not coming back.

      The usual way this works is that Western countries can stay ahead by innovating. There is a market for cutting edge technology, unless you deliberately destroy that market but refusing to do business.

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      There is a surprise penalty in this stupidity, the US government will invalidate patents on the products it blocks from sale, a requirement of patents is that they be made available at a reasonable price by blocking access to patented products that gives Huawei licence to ignore those patents and produce those products directly. Cunts Idiots and Arseholes running the US state department is destroying the US diplomatically.

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      It's worse than that. There are already foundries around the world. TSMC is huge, and cutting edge. This law appears to restrict those foundries from using American built (designed) equipment to make chips for Huawei. So the effect will be to encourage those foundries to buy equipment that is not beholden to the US.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The outcome would likely be far worse than that, actually.

      Look at what happened with the solar cell industry, for example. US companies developed solar cells, but the large energy companies (mostly oil) used their bought politicians to stifle their development by pretending that government subsidies were handouts, ignoring the fact that they got their start by using government subsidies... and continue using their bought politicians to keep collecting those subsidies that exist to support innovation as go

  • how stupid! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by monkeyFuzz ( 3398671 ) on Friday March 27, 2020 @08:57PM (#59880620)
    Like this will actually accomplish anything rather than further speed up a fully indigenous supply chain.
  • by NotEmmanuelGoldstein ( 6423622 ) on Friday March 27, 2020 @09:16PM (#59880678)

    ... use American chip-making equipment ...

    So Taiwan has to choose either 1,300 million customers or 330 million customers. I wonder how difficult that will be? The USA is one of the few trading partners that treats Taiwan as a country but endangering the prosperity of a country is an unforgivable act of (non-violent) terrorism.

    • by dryeo ( 100693 )

      That's America today. Canada is a security risk with Trump wanting to put troops on the border, as if Canadians are going to sneak into America where the virus is taking off and they'd have no medical coverage, but then we're a big security risk suddenly.
      Meanwhile America expects us to hold Huawei executive for something that is legal here, namely associating with who they choose. Americans are so used to their right of freedom of association being ignored that they've forgot that it is a natural right that

      • Trump also used "emergency" national defense powers to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum from Canada, whereas the US Constitution gives Congress, not the President.

        We have rules in place, but they're increasingly a farce.

        • by dryeo ( 100693 )

          From here, it seems weird for one person to wield so much power and Trump has been very inconsistent.

    • So Taiwan has to choose either 1,300 million customers or 330 million customers.

      No. It's 1.300 million poor people vs. 330 US, 520 EU and 200 million asian (japan, korea,..) people, All of them rich people compared to the 1.3000 million poor chinese.

      If TSMC doesn't submit, they won't be able to sell anywhere else outside China, Russia, maybe India either. IE, TSMC would go bankrupt.

      Of course it's state terrorism, but right now, it's successful.See the US terrorism against Iran to see it in action

      • by Gabest ( 852807 )

        Rich because the value of the USD. Once oil producing countries become irrelevant and the FED keeps printing trillions to keep the economy afloat things may change.

      • by Megol ( 3135005 )

        Why would the EU be interested in supporting the USA selfish clinging to relevance? Huawei isn't shunned even by those allies that let themselves be fooled into supporting an invasive war against a sovereign state. Remember that there's an old saying in Tennessee...

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It all depends what happens with the US this year. With COVID-19 and the election everyone is waiting to see what kind of America emerges in 2021.

      • I've been waiting to see what kind of America emerges every year since 2000.

        Haven't had too many happy surprises.

        At least I'm old now. Shouldn't go on too much longer.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • ... a slew of US tech companies stand to lose, like Apple and Qualcomm along with Huawei.

    How does that make sense? Apple is neither a customer nor a supplier of chips to Huawei. Huawei is also building phones with their own chips. They don't use Qualcomm chips. Maybe they stop paying patent royalties to Qualcomm. Maybe not.

    Either the author doesn't know the business or he is somehow theorizing some secondary actions that haven't even been hinted at yet.

    • Because they aren't targeting Huawei directly. They are going after the chips Huawei buys from TSMC. It's very hard to know what would the consequences would be because both articles are so vague. But basically TSMC depends on American technology to build at least some of their chips. What the bill is trying to do is stop those chips from being sold to Huawei. However that technology is also being used to fabricate chips for other companies.

      What if Huawei or China comes along and says we'll give you $X to d

      • It's not actual products, is it? Merely imaginary property, like patents.

        Wanna guess how much of a shit China and TSMC will give about those, if you threaten to kill their business if they don't obey your unproven accusations?

        Even if the US has tech secrets, China will simply take them (e.g. via spying, or via the US literally telling them so they are able to build it for the US on the cheap), and give it to TSMC.

        And a big middle finger will.then be sent to the Trumpeltier [m.dict.cc]

    • Don't know why Apple was included, but U.S. companies like ON Semi, Broadcom, Cirrus Logic, Qorvo, and Skyworks Solutions will be and have been affected.

      Huawei went from using ON Semi's chips to MediaTek's (Taiwan); went from using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips supplied by Broadcom to those supplied by HiSilicon (China); switched to audio chips once supplied by Cirrus Logic to those by NXP Semi (Netherlands); and are now using antenna switch chip from Murata (Japan) and HiSilicon instead of those from Qorvo and

      • by Kohath ( 38547 )

        HiSilicon is a Huawei subsidiary.

        You seem to agree that Apple and Qualcomm are not examples of US companies that might lose business.

  • by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Friday March 27, 2020 @09:56PM (#59880778)

    Exactly what laws (either US or international) gives the US the ability to tell a Taiwanese company that its not allowed to sell its products to a Chinese company just because they happened to make those products on equipment that was made in the USA?

    That's like the US telling EVA Air that it can't fly to Chinese destinations just because it happens to fly Boeing aircraft.

    • by hjf ( 703092 )

      basically it comes down to:
      "if we find you sold to huawei we won't sell you any more machines, replacement parts, software updates, or supplies for the machines".

    • by jon3k ( 691256 )
      From TFA:

      Under the new measures, foreign companies that use American chipmaking equipment would first need to secure a license before supplying some chips to Huawei, the report says.

      So presumably it's because, maybe, TSMC is licensing some US intellectual property to manufacture these chips? Just a guess, honestly not sure.

      • Its pure blackmail. If "friendly" country X won't stop selling to country Y, then US threatens sanctions on country X. This only work so long at the US is the dominant trade partner. For many countries, China is the dominant trading partner, or soon will be.
        • Solution for China. Introduce a 0.01% final value export tax. Now the tax authorities will see price transfer tax evasion clearly. Secondly India or Vietnam cannot take on assembly overnight. Thirdly, no way will automated assembly machines ever be constructed in the US, as labor costs are just too high. Same reason - not in Mexico or Ireland either. Then under the WTO trade rules, this is a secondary boycott. In theory consequences follow.
        • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Technically it's extortion, not blackmail. The rest is spot on. The US already did it with Iran, it was only a matter of time until they did it to China.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by larryjoe ( 135075 )

      This is bad news for TSMC. Not only does TSMC lose current revenue from Huawei, but the Chinese government will feel even more pressure to steal the technology needed to upgrade SMIC to become a true TSMC competitor.

    • They will penalise them economically.

    • Exactly what laws

      None. The whole point of the article is that such laws may be coming. As for how that works, easy, you cut off their local source of business. Boeing isn't a good example as there's a very viable (and in many cases more desirable) competitor. The chip industry on the other hand is saturated. Losing a massive customer like Apple is devastating and the USA absolutely could pass a law banning Apple from dealing with TSMC. Now as to whether that law would be upheld going through the courts, that's a different q

    • Exactly what laws (either US or international) gives the US the ability to tell a Taiwanese company that its not allowed to sell its products to a Chinese company just because they happened to make those products on equipment that was made in the USA?

      That's like the US telling EVA Air that it can't fly to Chinese destinations just because it happens to fly Boeing aircraft.

      So, when will it be illegal to own a Honda, or a Toyota and use it to drive to work?

  • Won't this cause American companies to lose contracts? Other companies in other counties will pick up the slack.

    • The US acts like a school bully who thinks all the kids still fear him or need him, but in reality they don't anymore.

      You're correct: the only losers here are US companies. Their customers will simply find other options and move on - which was bound to happen anyway, but now they're on an accelerated path to free themselves from ties to US companies.

  • It was anyway reported that TSMC uses less than 10% USA technology for their 7nm EUV process, although it's not certain what the new US export rule limit is (but they were announcing 10% previously). TSMC bought their current machines, and probably substantial amount of material, licenses etc. under current, more relaxed terms and I can imagine that they will be able to continue doing business with Huawei for a while. That buys them time to find replacement suppliers for USA ones. I guess other fabs will
  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday March 28, 2020 @12:14PM (#59882166)

    It is obviously an unreliable partner, just like any other banana-republic. Manufacturing and commerce depends on long-term reliable partnerships, and high volatility caused by some local dictator with a big ego and no real understanding of economics grades a county down to a buyer but not a possible supplier.

  • however, as far as i can tell, the reason behind all this yankee posturing over huawei is because their products interfere with the benighted states world wide roll out of it's own spy hardware.

    i arrive at this prejudice by watching who makes the most noise - the lady doth protest too much, methinks.

  • In other news... Huawei announces sale of it's chip manufacture division to Huaweier Inc.

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