Tue, Mar 03, 2020 page10

• Huawei works around US ban by using its own chips

  • Bloomberg
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  Huawei Technologies Co (華為), the Chinese technology giant barred from doing business with US suppliers, is finding a way around the strict limits imposed by US President Donald Trump’s administration.

  The US Department of Commerce, citing national security concerns, has largely forbidden US companies from selling Huawei the computer chips it needs to make a piece of equipment integral to newly introduced high-speed wireless networks.

  In response, China’s largest technology company ramped up its own capabilities to manufacture the gear, which is known as a base station.

  In a sign that the self-reliance is working, Huawei in the fourth quarter of last year sold more than 50,000 of these next-generation base stations that were free of US technology, said Tim Danks, the US-based Huawei executive responsible for partner relations.

  That is only about 8 percent of the total base stations that Huawei has sold as of last month, but the company is quickly ramping up at its secretive HiSilicon division to make more of these American component-free devices, Danks said.

  “It’s still our intention to return to using US technology,” he said.

  The longer Huawei goes without access to US suppliers, the more unlikely it is to be able to return to using them, Danks added.

  A base station is a typically suitcase-sized piece of machinery that is used to help connect cellphones to fixed-line networks carrying Internet traffic, and it is an essential ingredient in the next generation of mobile networks — 5G.

  Popular among telecoms, Huawei’s base stations are widely considered among the most reliable for the price.

  US officials accuse Huawei of stealing valuable intellectual property and breaching a trade embargo with Iran.

  The Trump administration blacklisted the company last year, saying that there is a risk Huawei could give Beijing access to sensitive data coursing through telecommunications networks that employ its gear.

  Huawei has denied the allegations.

  Critics have also said that the US government imposed the sanctions to hobble China’s leadership in key aspects of 5G technology.

  As of early last month, Huawei had shipped about 600,000 5G base stations to mobile phone companies racing to upgrade networks to the new standard, which is designed to deliver data at faster speeds to a broad range of wirelessly connected devices — not just mobile handsets.

  Most of these base stations were made using stockpiled chips bought before the ban.

  While Huawei does not disclose its suppliers, base stations typically rely on a kind of processor called a field-programmable gate array that is made by Intel Corp, a chipmaking colossus based in Santa Clara, California, and Xilinx Inc, in neighboring San Jose.

  Those chips provide flexibility that makes it easier to update machines as new standards and features are added.

  Huawei’s chips are application-specific, meaning they are tailored to particular functions and it takes more time and money to replace them. That is a disadvantage at a time when new technology, such as 5G, is in its infancy and still subject to big changes.

  The US initially clamped down on all shipments of US supplies to Huawei, which had spent more than US$10 billion a year on US products, but later began making some exceptions.

  Xilinx and fellow chipmakers Micron Technology Inc and Broadcom Inc have all reported falling earnings on reduced or eliminated sales to Huawei.

  Attempts by the US to persuade European and other allied countries to ban Huawei equipment have not succeeded, and chipmakers in Asia and Europe continue to supply it.

  For their part, US chipmakers have argued that banning the supply of parts that Huawei can get elsewhere is counterproductive, saying that the lost revenue crimps research and development budgets and the ability to produce the best chips in the future.

  Huawei’s HiSilicon Technologies Co (海思半導體) chip unit designs semiconductors and has them manufactured by industry-leading plants owned by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電).

  The Chinese company led the market for base stations with a 28 percent share last year, New Street Research said.

  The investment company said that demand for that equipment is expected to rise this year with the 5G network rollout.

  Nokia Oyj and Ericsson AB are its two largest competitors in this market.
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