How the U.S. ban will affect Huawei technology

  • 5 years ago
WASHINGTON — Last Monday, news broke that Trump had banned Chinese tech giant, Huawei, from the U.S. market after trade negotiations went stale and Google has only temporarily lifted its Android ban against Huawei. How will this affect the company?

On Sunday, according to Tech Radar, Google announced it would be pulling the company's license to use Android, however, the U.S. Commerce Department temporarily lifted the ban on Tuesday.

These two moves leave Huawei in a difficult situation, to say the least. Here is how this could affect the company.

Chinese tech company, Huawei, was blacklisted by the U.S. government last Monday. The tech company — as do most tech corporations — depends heavily on foreign components.

Huawei's P30 Pro motherboard is an example of this. According to BBC, only two components from the motherboard are Chinese, its RF transceivers and audio chip. Both are made by HiSilicon, which is owned by Huawei.

Two of the chip's front end modules which connect the phone to network signals and allows it to manage different radio frequencies are made in two separate American semiconductor firms. One is located in Massachusetts and the other in Greensboro, North Carolina. Both will be affected by the ban.

The device's flash storage located at the back of the motherboard is made by a semiconductor company from Idaho called Micron Technologies. Benchmark analysts estimate that 13 percent of the company's revenue comes from Huawei.

The P30 Pro's dynamic random access memory or DRAM is also foreign. This piece of equipment is from South Korean component company, SK Hynix.

This is the breakdown of a piece of a single device. Imagine how many foreign components are needed for Huawei's laptops, tablets, home devices, and accessories?

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei is defiant. Global News reports that during an interview with Chinese state media, CCTV, he said quote, "The U.S. government's actions at the moment underestimate our capabilities."

If you got a Huawei, continue using at your own discretion. Or get any one of the thousands of other phones out there.

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