Blocked by the US, Huawei has already imported bulk chips from South Korea

According to the Korea Economic Daily, Huawei has proposed a contract to import stable semiconductor chips with the leaders of South Korean companies, in response to recent strong attacks by the US government.

Samsung and SK Hynix are leading the field of memory chip production worldwide. Photo: Bloomberg.

Huawei is the world's largest telecommunications equipment supplier and one of five "close customers" of Samsung and SK Hynix, according to the report, which Huawei spends about $ 8.1 billion a year. to buy DRAM and NAND memory chips from these two companies.

On the side of Samsung and SK Hynix, the two Korean companies currently hold a market share of more than 70% of DRAM memory chips supplied globally. Any unilateral action by the US government on Samsung as well as SK Hynix will threaten Huawei's viability.

Facing tense developments in the U.S.-China trade relationship, Huawei is becoming the target of the Trump administration when under constant trade pressure. Earlier, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order prohibiting semiconductor chip manufacturers using US technology from being authorized to supply products to Huawei without Washington's approval.

Although the memory chip makers are not on the U.S. Government restrictions list, Huawei remains concerned that President Donald Trump will expand the bans in the future.

Korea Daily quoted an industry official as saying that Huawei is rapidly building semiconductor chip stores to prevent the worst case scenario.

Earlier, the US blocked supply to HiSilicon, Huawei's chip maker. Photo: Reuters.

Last week, the US government issued new rules aimed directly at semiconductor chip production by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon, preventing the company from accessing component supplies from the US.

According to Reuters, US export control rules that aim to block HiSilicon's supply in two important areas are semiconductor chip design software from US companies including Cadence Design Systems Inc and Synopsys Inc, co. limiting the production capacity of TSMC plants.