Qualcomm Has Applied to the U.S. Government for a License to Sell Its Chips

In 2019, Huawei was included in the U.S. blacklist, which restricts U.S. enterprises from selling products to Chinese mobile phone manufacturers. U.S. companies, including Qualcomm, must obtain permission from the U.S. government before exporting goods to companies on the list.

In May 2020, Washington revised a rule requiring foreign manufacturers using American chip manufacturing equipment to obtain a license before they can sell chips to Huawei. The U.S. government tightened the regulation in August, which may lead to the disconnection of chip supply for Huawei.

Huawei has designed its own smartphone chip Kirin through its Hisilicon subsidiary. However, Kirin is produced by TSMC. From September 15, TSMC will no longer be able to provide chips to Huawei.

Guo Ping, Huawei's rotating chairman, said on September 23 that "the United States has been attacking us... Which poses a great challenge to our production and operation." "we obtained the last batch of chipsets in mid September, and we are still evaluating more details." Guo Ping said that Huawei has "enough" chips for its business to its business unit, This includes its network equipment. He did not comment on how many smartphones he still had in stock.

Due to US sanctions, Huawei has little choice in purchasing chips.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal in August, Qualcomm has been lobbying the U.S. government to allow it to export chips to China. In a speech reported by the Wall Street Journal, the American chip giant argued that export restrictions would transfer billions of dollars in sales to Qualcomm's competitors. In the company's second quarter earnings report last year, CEO Steve Mollenkopf attributed the export restrictions to Huawei's weak sales at that time.

At present, TSMC is unable to contract Kirin chips for Huawei, which may be a good opportunity for Qualcomm. If an export license is obtained, Qualcomm can fill the gap, which will also promote Qualcomm's business.

Guo Ping said on the same day that Qualcomm has always been a very important partner of Huawei. Over the past decade, Huawei has been purchasing chips from Qualcomm. Qualcomm has applied to the U.S. government for a license to export products to China. If they obtain the license, Huawei is willing to continue to buy from them and use Qualcomm chips in Huawei mobile phones.

According to China National Broadcasting Corporation cgtn, major chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm and SK Hynix have applied to sell licenses to China. A spokesman for SK Hynix said that the U.S. government was "still reviewing" its application to sell licenses to Huawei, but refused to provide more details to the media.

SMIC, China's largest chipmaker, said in a statement that it had also "submitted license applications covering a variety of Huawei products", but did not elaborate.

Some companies, including Intel, have also been approved. A spokesman for the US company confirmed that the company has obtained permission from the US authorities to continue to provide Huawei with products, but did not specify the products that can be sold. It is reported that Intel has provided processors for Huawei laptops in the past. In addition, amd also said that it has obtained the license to supply Huawei.

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Original title: Huawei's "broken core" is turning around, and Qualcomm has applied to the US government for a supply license

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