American chipmakers urge US government to soften stance against Huawei

American chipmakers have started urging the US government to soften its stance against Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies. 

American chipmakers show support for Huawei

US could lose USD 11 billion of business from Huawei

Top officials from Intel, Qualcomm, and Xilinx had a meeting late in May with the Commerce Department about Huawei's status in the black list. 

Last month, the Department of Commerce included Huawei on a blacklist, hindering the firm to do business with American companies. It also put Huawei on its "Entity List", signaling the need for US firms to secure a special license to sell products to the Chinese company. 

Worried that their financial performance may be hit by this, chip makers argued that Huawei products, including smartphones and computer servers, do not pose security concerns unlike the latter's 5G network. 

In 2018, Huawei spent USD 70 billion for components, USD 11 billion of which was spent buying products from Qualcomm, Intel, and Micron Technology Inc. 

A source also said that Qualcomm remained eager to supply chips to Huawei for common devices. 

Even the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), a trade group, seeks to initiate a discussion with the US government regarding the potential impact of Huawei ban. 

For technologies that do not relate to national security, it seems they shouldn't fall within the scope of the order. And we have conveyed this perspective to government, said Jimmy Goodrich, vice president of global policy at SIA.

Google also advocated so it could continue its business with the firm, Huawei Chairman Liang Hua said. 

They're doing it by their own desire because, for many of them, Huawei is one of their major customers, said Andrew Williamson, vice president of Huawei's public affairs. 

Source: Channel News Asia