This week, the U.S. government Blacklisted CPU designer Loongson and server maker Inspur claim the companies are helping modernize the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The addition to the Entity List will limit Inspur and Loongson’s access to US-originating technology, effectively limiting their existing business and their ability to develop new products.
The U.S. Department of Commerce added Inspur and Loongson to its entity list after discovering that Inspur and Loongson acquired “items of U.S. origin to support China’s military modernization efforts.” The US DoC does not specify which items are procured, but may include US-origin goods, software, services and technology.
From now on, U.S.-based producers of hardware, software, and services, and foreign companies using U.S. technology (e.g., contract manufacturers of chips using U.S.-made tools) will be required by the U.S. Department of Commerce to must obtain a valid export license. Permit applications are set to be reviewed subject to denial.
No more Loongson chip production?
Loongson is China’s leading CPU developer, and has been implementing the MIPS Instruction Set Architecture (ISA), originally designed in the United States, for many years in Loongson’s latest quad-core 3A5000, 16-core 3C5000, and 32-core 3D5000 processors based on the LA464 core. I have used. Uses the company’s own LoongArch ISA. It is reported to contain nearly 2,000 unique instructions. As a result, these CPUs can take advantage of multiple architectural innovations such as Binary Translation Extensions (LBT), Vector Processing Extensions (LSX), and Advanced Vector Processing Extensions (LASX), but are inferior to MIPS. We maintain compatibility. Additionally, it can run code written for previous generations of his Loongson processors.
Almost all chips designed in China are developed using US-made electronic design automation (EDA) tools. Additionally, they are manufactured by either China-based SMIC or Taiwan-based TSMC or UMC using tooling made in the USA.
Now that Loongson has joined the Entity List, all of its EDA and Chip Manufacturing Partners (SMIC) must apply to the US DoC for export licenses in order to continue working with CPU designers. SMIC, which has been under heavy attack from the US government for years, is unlikely to get it, so it officially serves Loongson, which uses SMIC’s 12nm-class manufacturing technology for its latest processors. You cannot.
No more hardware for Inspur?
Inspur’s backlist is a big deal. Inspur is a giant IT conglomerate focused on AI, big data, cloud computing, servers and storage. It is also the third largest server maker in the world. 10% market shareInspur does not develop its own silicon, but relies on CPUs, GPUs and other chips designed by industry leaders such as Intel and Nvidia.
Inspur to procure advanced CPUs and GPUs used to build powerful supercomputers after Biden administration imposed restrictions on China’s supercomputing sector without proper export licenses in October 2021 I can not do. But now the company’s suppliers must obtain export licenses for almost all components and software they sell to Inspur. This includes memory modules, storage devices (HDD, SSD), network controllers, NVMe/SAS/RAID controllers, software, etc. even the power supply.
We expect the US DoC to grant export licenses to many Inspur suppliers, but that may not be enough to support the company’s needs. This hits a number of Inspur suppliers, including well-known names like Intel, Nvidia, Broadcom, Microsemi, Samsung, Solidigm and SK Hynix.
35+ Entities Blacklisted
“ERC has acquired 4Paradigm Technology, Inspur Group Co., Loongson Technology, National Research Center for Parallel Computer Engineering and Technology, Qingdao National Institute of Marine Science, and Wuxi Institute of Advanced Technology and has decided to add them to the list of attempted entities. “We have decided to acquire U.S.-origin items to support China’s military modernization efforts. This activity is contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States,” said the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security. The statement stated, “All of these entities require a license to export items subject to the EAR, which will be reviewed under a presumption of denial. It means “items subject to the EAR” for these purposes. Licensing requirements include foreign-produced items subject to export control regulations. ”
In addition to Inspur and Loongson, US DoC’s BIS added 35 entities from Belarus (1), Burma (3), China (26), Pakistan (4), Russia (1), and Taiwan () to Entities Did. list.
