Burst! This big chip IP factory confirms that it cannot export advanced IP products to China

Source: Network

    It is reported that this is the first time that Arm has disclosed that it has banned the sale of advanced chip design IP products to China. This action will have a profound impact on the future development of the domestic semiconductor industry.

    In this regard, the relevant person in charge of Pingtou said to the media: "The cooperation between Pingtou and Arm has not been affected by any new compliance requirements, and Pingtou will continue to cooperate with ARM to research and develop new products on the premise of legal compliance."

    According to the new export control regulations issued by the United States in October this year, Chinese companies will not be able to purchase advanced CPUs and GPUs from AMD, Intel, Nvidia and other American companies.

    Because of the export control rules of the United States and the United Kingdom, and the Wassenaar Arrangement for the export control of dual-use goods and technologies, Chinese enterprises cannot obtain the leading CPU IP license from Arm.

    The Wassenaar Agreement, established in July 1996, is a voluntary export control system designed to promote its members to take greater responsibility for the export of weapons and dual-use products.

    Data shows that these advanced CPUs and GPUs include ARM‘s Neoverse V series CPU IP, namely Neoverse V1 and Neoverse V2 CPU core IP. These IPs are the key to achieving high-performance computing applications, such as chips for designing supercomputers.

    Arm does not sell processors. Its main business is to sell the IP authorization scheme of chip design, and it is the gatekeeper to review chip design access.

    According to the latest US federal export control regulations, it is prohibited to send US technology to China to manufacture supercomputers with a volume of less than 1178 cubic meters and a performance of more than 100 FP64 PetaFLOPS or more than 200 FP32 PetaFLOPS.

    The high-end Neoverse V series design of Arm is American technology, so its design cannot be licensed to Chinese enterprises.

    It is worth mentioning that Arm‘s Neoverse V series design can not only target HPC processors of supercomputers, but also be used to develop nuclear weapons. At the same time, it is restricted by the recent new export control regulations and the Wassenaar Agreement. 

    This restriction may directly affect the Reliance 710 processor launched by Alibaba last year.

    It is reported that an executive of a chip design company in Shenzhen said that after the failure of Softbank‘s sale of Arm to Nvidia for US $66 billion earlier this year, many Chinese chip engineers regained their confidence in using Arm design and did not have to worry about their future DG.

    This time, when the company was told that it could not purchase the high-end chips of Neoverse V1 for cloud computing, it realized that it was "too naive" and that Arm‘s decision this time was obviously "not for money".

    Data shows that IP (intellectual property) core is a very important part of the semiconductor industry, which refers to the pre designed and verified functional modules in chip design. Chip design companies need to spend tens of millions, even hundreds of millions, to purchase all kinds of IP. According to the prospectus of Aojie Technology, in 2019, the company purchased IP of 43.3 million yuan, accounting for 10.11% of the total expenditure; The Cambrian prospectus shows that from 2017 to 2019, the amount of IP purchased from suppliers accounted for more than 50% of the total expenditure.

    Arm‘s IP is the basis of most chips in the world, and is used by most companies that develop cutting-edge technologies. The growing tension between China and the United States has forced some Chinese chip companies to consider using an increasingly complex open source alternative designed by ARM, namely RISC-V.