ARM employees have been instructed to suspend business with Huawei: Report

Huawei has been facing blow after blow in its business relations across companies from around the world, especially US companies after it was put on a trade blacklist by the Trump administration. The latest setback reportedly comes from UK-based chip designer ARM that has sent a memo to its employees to suspend any kind of business with Huawei.[caption id="attachment_6684161" align="alignnone" width="1280"] An ARM Holdings Plc Cortex-A15 MPCore processor. Image: Telegraph.[/caption]Internal documents from the BBC say that ARM wants its employees to “halt all active contracts, support entitlements, and any pending engagements” with Huawei and its subsidiaries. The company memo states that its designs contain “US-origin technology”. ARM gave a statement to BBC that it was "complying with all of the latest regulations set forth by the US government”. Huawei hasn’t spoken on this yet.ARM is headquartered at Cambridge with offices spread across the world including six in the US. Although they don’t manufacture processors themselves, its designs or architecture are licensed by several other chipmakers including Apple, Qualcomm and Huawei for its mobile processors.Losing business from ARM, which is now owned by Softbank, is a major blow to the Chinese tech giant since its homegrown Kirin SoCs, from its subsidy HiSilicon, are based on ARM processor architecture.Huawei had been anticipating a ban and as a backup, they had been working on an alternative software for its mobile devices. Although the software is something they can build upon open sourced libraries and frameworks, creating a new architecture for its processors will be a huge challenge. Huawei is free to continue using the existing chips with the licenses for now. However, any future engagements will be suspended.It still isn’t clear whether the suspension of business comes from ARM themselves or on instructions from the US commerce department. If the former is the case, then more international companies will be joining in and cutting ties with Huawei.Read more on the Huawei banning saga:Huawei's Android license has been revoked: Here's what Huawei has to say about itHuawei's Android licence revoked: What it means for existing Huawei and Honor phone usersIntel and Qualcomm join Google in cutting off ties with Huawei following Trump banAfter Huawei blacklist, 'Boycott Apple' campaign gaining steam in China: ReportGerman chipmaker Infineon suspends shipments to Huawei after US trade blacklistHuawei is reportedly releasing its own Android alternative called IndeoenOS this fallHuawei accuses US of bullying, says working with Google to respond to banHuawei doesn't mention Android at its new Honor 20 series smartphone launch eventHuawei's trade ban by the US could advance local Chinese chip suppliersHuawei CEO Ren Zhengfei claims the US's 90-day reprieve does not bear 'much impact'Some Huawei Mobile users are considering a switch after Google suspension