ARM suspends business with Huawei

Cambridge headquartered ARM UK-based chip designer has told staff it must suspend business with Huawei according to an internal memo. ARM instructed  employees to halt ” all active contracts, support entitlements and any pending engagements with Huawei and its subsidiaries to comply with a recent US trade clampdown, as its design contained US origin technology. This would affect Huawei’s ability to develop its own chips, many of which are currently built with ARM’s under underlying technology for  which it pays a licence. These are used in in Huawei’s 5G base stations and computer servers in addition to its smartphones.

ARM’s designs forms the basis of most mobile device processors worldwide. ARM was taken over by Japanese telecoms giant Softbank, and employs over 6, 000 workers and has eight offices in the US. ARM does not manufacture computer processors itself, but licences its semiconductor technologies to others. In some cases, manufacturers only licence ARM’s architecture or “instruction sets” which determines how processors handle commands. This option gives chipmakers greater freedom to customise their own designs.

ARM’s US headquarters are in San Jose, California and the firm has offices in Washington, Arizona, Texas and Massachusetts.

Huawei has issued a statement “We are confident this regrettable situation can be resolved and our priority remains to continue to deliver world-class technology and products to our customers around the world”.