#Qualcomm has been granted permission from the U.S. to sell 4G chips to #Huawei- an exemption from doing business with the Chinese company banned by the Trump administration.
As reported to Reuters, the American company didn’t disclose which #4G chips were allowed by the license.
Huawei has been on the U.S.’ non-entity list since last year due to national security concerns. And effective in September 2020, the U.S. government further closed the loop that allowed chipmakers to ensure their components didn’t have the “US-made” tag in spite of including American technologies.
The restrictions impacted Huawei’s ability to produce its own chips with no access to chip design software and fabrication tools.
In August, Huawei commented on running out of processor chips. According to CEO of Huawei’s consumer business, Richard Yu said at the time that 2020 might be the last generation of Kirin high-end chips and processors- that differentiates Huawei’s flagship devices.
The license will not substitute or remedy Huawei’s situation since the Chinese company used Qualcomm’s chips in limited quantities and with cheaper models. This limited access to silicon and other technologies would require the company to radically modify its mobile strategy and business model.