Reuters quoted people familiar with the matter on the 17th, saying that a number of US chip suppliers including Intel, Qualcomm and Xilinx secretly pressure the US government to relax the supply ban on Huawei.

Reuters quoted a person familiar with the matter as saying that senior US chipmakers Intel and Xilinx executives attended a meeting with the US Department of Commerce at the end of May to discuss the response to Huawei’s blacklisting.

The report mentioned that the US government claims that Huawei has a “national security issue” and prohibits US suppliers from supplying to Huawei without the permission of the government.

Reuters said that four sources said that Qualcomm also raised doubts with the US Department of Commerce.

Three people familiar with the matter said that US chipmakers believe that Huawei’s department responsible for selling products such as smartphones and computer servers uses conventional parts and is unlikely to have similar “security concerns” with its 5G network equipment.

“This is not to help Huawei, but to prevent damage to US companies,” one source told Reuters.  The report also mentioned that Huawei purchased a total of $70 billion worth of parts and components in 2018, of which about 11 billion worth of parts came from US companies, including Qualcomm, Intel, and Micron.

Reuters said that people familiar with the matter also revealed that Qualcomm hopes to continue selling chips for manufacturing general-purpose devices such as mobile phones and smart watches to Huawei.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has acknowledged that it has repeatedly arranged consultations between the company and the US government to help (industry companies) comply with the ban and to introduce to government officials the impact of the ban on (USA) companies.  “Technology unrelated to national security does not seem to be included in the ban. We have communicated this to the government,” said Jimmy Goodrich, vice president of global policy at SIA.

Reuters said that Intel, Xilinx and Qualcomm declined to comment on it.