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Tag: chip

  • Huawei Making Its Own Chips to Bypass U.S. Ban

    Huawei Making Its Own Chips to Bypass U.S. Ban

    Huawei is turning to its own chip-making abilities in an effort to bypass a ban cutting off its access to U.S. technology.

    The U.S. has alleged that Huawei maintains backdoors in its network equipment, backdoors that are reserved for law enforcement use. As a result, officials have claimed Huawei represents a clear security risk, and that its equipment could be used by Beijing to spy on companies and governments around the world. In fact, Huawei has been accused of basically being an arm of the Chinese government.

    In an effort to slow Huawei’s dominance, the U.S. banned the company and prohibited U.S. firms from doing business with it without special license. That has yet to slow its growth, however, as the company continues to be one of the dominant network equipment providers.

    Huawei is stepping up its efforts to bypass the U.S. ban. According to Bloomberg, the company is turning to its own chip-making capabilities, selling as many as 50,000 network base stations in the fourth quarter, base stations that are completely free of U.S. chips or technology. Ultimately, the company would prefer to go back to using U.S. chips, but it may soon be too late.

    “It’s still our intention to return to using U.S. technology,” Tim Danks, U.S. executive in charge of partner relations, told Bloomberg. Danks did, however, acknowledge that the longer Huawei uses its own chips, the harder it will be to go back to U.S. chips. This is likely a result of the natural decisions, dependencies and forks in the road that come with any development cycle.

    Either way, the ongoing battle between the U.S. and Huawei shows no sign of abating.

  • Dell Turning to AMD Amid Intel Chip Shortage

    Dell Turning to AMD Amid Intel Chip Shortage

    Yahoo is reporting that Dell is increasingly looking to AMD in response to Intel’s chip shortages.

    Intel has experienced significant supply issues in 2019, even penning an open letter to customers and partners apologizing for the chip shortages. In the letter, executive vice president Michelle Johnston Holthaus wrote:

    “I’d like to acknowledge and sincerely apologize for the impact recent PC CPU shipment delays are having on your business and to thank you for your continued partnership. I also want to update you on our actions and investments to improve supply-demand balance and support you with performance-leading Intel products. Despite our best efforts, we have not yet resolved this challenge.”

    It appears that at least one major customer is not waiting for the challenge to be resolved. According to Yahoo, Dell is looking to source chips from AMD to make up for Intel’s shortages.

    “We are evaluating AMD chips,” Tom Sweet, Dell’s CFO, said on Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade in response to a question about what the company planned to do in view of Intel’s struggles.

    The move is particularly significant, as Dell has predominantly used Intel’s chips for 35 years. That focused reliance on the chip giant, however, is largely to blame for Dell’s 6 percent decline in consumer PCs during its most recent quarter.

    With Intel not expected to have their supply issues resolved until the second half of 2020, Dell appears to be adopting the philosophy ‘don’t have all your eggs in one basket.’