The wave of globalization regression is no longer a day or two.
The golden age of multinationals doing business seems to be over. At least at the moment when the competition between China and the United States has intensified and the War between Russia and Ukraine has triggered comprehensive sanctions against Russia in the West, even the so-called "Silicon Valley Big Four" such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have struggled to sell some products, and they have been censored by the US security department at every turn.
You see, the latest news received by the old fox, this time it is the turn of Xinsi Technology.
According to Bloomberg, insiders revealed that Synopsys, the world's largest semiconductor EDA software company, is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industrial Security.
What to investigate? Synopsys was accused of providing key technologies and products to Chinese companies on the Entity List, according to people familiar with the matter. In other words, helping Huawei, SMIC and other "eye nails" of the US government evaded sanctions.
Speaking of this, the old fox will review with you the "seven deadly sins" that Huawei has suffered over the years.
Of course, the "Seven Deadly Sins" are just metaphors, these are not the "crimes" committed by Huawei, but the flying disasters, blocking the knife and carrying the pot, adding up to more than seven cases.
One of the most famous, and most far-reaching crackdowns, occurred in May 2019, when Huawei was included in the U.S. "entity list."
It's no secret that Huawei is one of the world's largest smartphone makers – and of course, ever. The most crucial reason why he fell from the throne to the altar and let glory turn into a cloud of smoke was the US government's move of "beating the snake and hitting seven inches."
What is the most important thing about a smartphone? chip. Without a chip, the phone has no soul.
Mobile phones without chips are like the walking dead, only superficially human, but in fact can not exercise human actions and functions. Mobile phones are the same, without a good chip, it returns to the Nokia era, and the regression is by no means ten years or eight years.
In May 2019, the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced that Huawei and 70 of its affiliates would be included in the U.S. Entity List, prohibiting Huawei from obtaining components and related technologies from U.S. companies without U.S. government approval. Over the next three years, the ban escalated so much that all companies around the world were unable to use U.S.-patented technology to work with Huawei.
As a result, Huawei has also ushered in the darkest moment, facing the embarrassing situation of "no core available".
Without the core, the shell of the mobile phone is "Walking Dead".
However, judging from the fact that Xinsi Technology was investigated by the US Department of Commerce, I am afraid that things are not so simple.
The United States' own backyard has always had Huawei sympathizers, and in recent years, it has continuously "delivered" the key technology for manufacturing chips to Huawei.
U.S. sanctions have been greatly reduced.
Speaking of this Synopsys Technology, if you don't understand the inside story of the chip manufacturing industry, I'm afraid there is no concept.
Eating melon netizens may only know the "Four Giants of Silicon Valley", who is this new idea, very good?
Absolutely.
Put it this way, more than 90% of the world's smartphone chips, whether you are Apple Samsung Motorola or Huawei Xiaomi Oppo, are basically provided by the world's three largest EDA software companies - Synopsys, Mingdao International, and Kaideng Electronics.
For example, if you want to build a simple hut, you don't need to design drawings, just move bricks. But if you want to build a reinforced concrete house with a frame structure, you must first design the drawings, how to go here, how to build there.
And if you want to build a skyscraper like Shenzhen Ping An Financial Center, Hong Kong International Commerce Plaza, Guangzhou Xiao man waist, you must use the most top professional design software to design drawings, in order to achieve tight seams and minimize errors.
Mobile phone chips are skyscrapers in the microscopic world. The design difficulty is probably even worse than these high-rise buildings, and you must use professional design software. And only three companies can offer it: Synopsys, Mentor and Kaiden.
This is also why once the US government sanctions, Huawei mobile phones are not playing a role. Because there are too many links in the hands of U.S. patents, chip design software is one of them.
However, this is good, Synopsys Technology has been secretly releasing water to Huawei.
How long does the water take? How much? Has huawei been saved? Both are currently "under investigation".
In fact, as early as the end of December last year, it was revealed that Synopsys received a subpoena from the Bureau of Industrial Security of the US Department of Commerce, accusing it of "dealing with certain Chinese entities."
At that time, Synopsys Said: The company complies with all regulations and will actively cooperate with this investigation.
And now the latest news has come out, it seems that Xinsi secretly doing business with Huawei is probably solid.
The stock price reacted the most sensitively, and as soon as the matter was exposed, Synopsys Technology's stock price on Wednesday fell by 4.6% on the New York Stock Exchange.
According to reports, since 2022, the stock price of Synopsys Technology has fallen by 17%, and I am afraid that there has been gossip.
So the question is, as the world's largest chip design software provider, why does Synopsys risk providing services to Huawei? Doesn't it know that from the Trump era to the US government at the helm of Biden, it has been as harsh as ever to suppress Huawei and exclude competitors?
Moreover, although the United States' style of sanctioning other countries at every turn has been criticized around the world, it is indeed one of the most severe in terms of law enforcement. I am afraid that no country in the world has been able to sanction law enforcement to the extent of "acting according to the rules" as the United States. That is, it is difficult to have a fish that slips through the net.
However, Synopsys still ventured into business with Huawei.
It seems that there are deeper factors at play.
This reminded the old fox of a sentence from Marx and his old man.
"Capital is bold once there is a proper profit; if there is a 10% profit, capital is guaranteed to be used everywhere; with 20% profit, capital becomes active; with 50% profit, capital is desperate."
As we all know, china has been the world's largest chip market for more than a decade.
For all U.S. tech giants, it's also a huge, rapidly growing market that can't be left behind.
China's 1.4 billion people, if the average person has a mobile phone, then, let alone a New Thinking Technology, that is, ten New Ideas Technology can raise white and fat, make a lot of money. And that's really what has happened in the last decade.
Today, the US Department of Commerce has a strict order, which is equivalent to "grabbing food", so that the technology giants in Silicon Valley will dump all the ducks cooked in the pot, which is bound to encounter considerable resistance.
As Marx and his elderly family pointed out, the hunger and thirst of capital is omnipresent. Where there is interest, it will go anywhere.
In this regard, China is really not like Russia at all.
After the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War, with wave after wave of Western sanctions, McDonald's, Starbucks, Sony, Google, Apple, Dell, ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs and other companies have announced their withdrawal from the Russian market. That's because, while russia's total GDP is less than a fraction of China's, roughly equivalent to one Guangdong province.
It is easy for Western capital to withdraw from Russia, and it is difficult to abandon China.
It is foreseeable that the Chinese Internet technology forces represented by Huawei are probably not over in the process of clashing with the US political circles. Synopsys Technology and Huawei's affection "breaking the thread" may not be an isolated case.
However, then again, to save Huawei's mobile phones, it is probably not enough to rely on the sympathizers of Synopsys Alone. After all, the chip manufacturing industry involves all aspects, extremely complex, and the difficulty of the process can be said to exceed that of skyscrapers.
For the melon-eating masses like the old fox, it is enough to see the hilarity, as for the resurrection hope of Huawei's mobile phone, at present, it is still a road obstacle and a long time.
Resources:
Semiconductor Industry Alliance: Sudden! US Investigation Synopsys Technology! Suspected...
Bad reviewer: The most comprehensive analysis of the whole site: Why do huawei mobile phone chips see no hope?
CBN: The local rise of China's "core" Development also relies on applications
Koala Science and Technology Museum: The U.S. Department of Commerce investigated Synopsys Technology, saying it was suspected of violating export controls by providing chip technology to Huawei
Editor: Yu Min