Huawei's ban in the United States: round-the-clock hardware (and software) supply issues

Huawei's ban by President Trump is in force and companies across the country are announcing that they will no longer be dealing with Huawei. Google, Qualcomm, Broadcom and Intel cut all ties with Huawei and, once this new 90-day exemption is complete, all US companies would no longer be allowed to provide Huawei with technology or services. Trump's decree is very broad and prohibits "any acquisition, import, transfer, installation, trade or use of any information or communications technology or service" by any foreign enterprise that the US government considers to be a threat, in this case Huawei.

With Huawei cut off from American technology, how difficult will it be for the company to continue to make smartphones? To get an idea of ​​how much change Huawei would need, let's take a look at the company's latest flagship smartphone, the Huawei P30 Pro. We will see where each component comes from and what other options exist in the ecosystem. Between the technical data sheets, the dismantling of iFixit and EE Times, we can gather a fairly good list of components and their countries of origin.

The power of HiSilicon

The system-on-a-chip is the heart of any smartphone because it provides most basic three-letter computer components such as the processor, graphics processor, LTE modem, GPS, and so on. Huawei is better off than most companies in the industry. It is one of the few companies (with Samsung) to have its own chip design division. Huawei's "HiSilicon" group designs SoCs for its smartphones and the Huawei P30 Pro uses the HiSilicon Kirin 980 SoC. HiSilicon has its own LTE modem solution and is a leader in the 5G modem industry.

Most Android manufacturers rely on Qualcomm, an American company, for its Snapdragon SoC systems with integrated LTE modems. Qualcomm has a near monopoly on the high-end smartphone market, not only reliably producing annual SoC upgrades, but also aggressively investing in and patenting cellular technologies. Qualcomm was one of the first companies to market LTE and also led the charge to 5G. Qualcomm has probably patented everything he can find along the way.

Qualcomm has been prosecuted and fined for anti-competitive patent licensing, and it appears committed to creating a legal puzzle for any company that does not use its products. Apple and Qualcomm were competing for Apple's use of Intel modems in its iPhones and when the two companies moved in, Intel left the 5G modems business the same day. Samsung has its own line of Exynos processors, but does not usually ship them to the US, but uses Qualcomm chips.

The Huawei Kirin 980 is based on the ARM architecture, which is licensed from Huawei to ARM Holdings PLC. The head office of ARM is located in England, but the Japanese parent company, Softbank, is one of them. Huawei is a factory-free chip designer, which means the company does not have a semiconductor foundry. So she has to make her flea designs somewhere. Kirin chips are generally manufactured at TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited), whose headquarters are, you do not know, in Taiwan. The recurring theme of this article is "Samsung would also be an option" – and for chip making, Samsung would also be an option. Samsung (based in South Korea) produces flagship chips from Qualcomm and is in fact one of the leading silicon manufacturers on the planet. We are good until now!

The rise of the BOE and Chinese screens

Huawei is getting its screens from almost everyone, Anandtech reporting various variants of the P30 with the help of displays of the usual suspects: Samsung Display (South Korea) and LG Display (also South Korea), as well as BOE Technology Group Co, a Chinese company. BOE is a true rookie on the display market and, according to Bloomberg, LG will overtake LG to become the second largest OLED supplier by the end of the year. If you do not pay attention to BOE, you should start.

Like Huawei, BOE enjoys the blessing and financial support of the Chinese government, which partly explains its sudden and spectacular rise: Korea holds the OLED market and BOE is China's answer. Faced with the power of China, BOE is attacking Samsung Display's biggest customers and trying to entice Apple to become a supplier for future iPhone screens. BOE even has the nerve to start courting Samsung Electronics as a customer, hoping that the company will abandon its usual OLED provider – uh –Samsung screen, in favor of BOE. Good luck with that.

Samsung has been trying to stay ahead of this new Chinese rival with advanced technology, mainly through the development of flexible displays for new generation folding smartphones like the Galaxy Fold. Samsung has invested six years of research and $ 130 million to develop flexible OLEDs that (somehow) work, which will surely give Samsung a little respite from its Chinese rival, is not it? ? Unfortunately for Samsung, South Korean prosecutors said that Samsung's flexible display technology had been stolen by one of its suppliers and sold to an unidentified display company in China. After the Galaxy Fold, the next big folding smartphone is from Chinaand this is the Huawei Mate X. The supplier of the flexible OLED display of Mate X is BOE. No doubt that BOE's technology was completely self-developed.

Under the P30 Pro display is a built-in fingerprint reader, an optical drive manufactured by Goodix, a Chinese company. Goodix also supplies OnePlus with its optical fingerprint scanners. Prior to the US ban, Qualcomm would have been another option, with its ultrasonic fingerprint scanner that debuted in the Galaxy S10. If you keep the score, we still have not met any American supplier.

Listing image by iFixit