Over the previous few years, the U.S. authorities added Huawei and Phytium to its Entity Checklist, successfully stopping corporations from accessing applied sciences developed within the U.S. and not using a particular export license. Nonetheless, these two blacklisted corporations not too long ago teamed up for a brand new desktop laptop from YahBoom decked out in… black.
Huawei’s Qingsong platform for entry-level desktops is predicated on Phytium’s D2000 processor that includes eight customized Armv8 FTC663 cores working at 2.30 GHz with 8MB of L2 cache (2MB unified L2 per two cores) and a 4MB unified L3 cache. The motherboard has two slots for DDR4 reminiscence modules, an M.2 slot supporting PCIe SSDs, two PCIe x16 slots, and one PCIe x8 slot. Fundamental I/O ports embody a GbE connector, 5 USB 2.0 ports, 3.5-mm audio enter/output jacks, and a COM port. For sure, the mainboard from two blacklisted corporations can also be black.
The Huawei Qingsong motherboard (utilized by YahBoom for its entry-level desktop) is supplied with 8GB of DDR4 reminiscence, a 256GB NVMe M.2 SSD, and Yeston’s Jingjia Micro-based graphics card with 2GB of DDR3 reminiscence in addition to two show outputs (HDMI and D-Sub/VGA). The machine has a DVD-RW optical disc drive and may home a 3.5-inch SATA HDD or SSD.
The system is at present out there from JD.com (and was initially found by @momomo_us), and maybe the most important shock is its worth. The machine prices￥8,040 ($1,067 with out VAT), which is on par with a comparatively high-end desktop PC. Huawei and YahBoom usually are not the one PC suppliers with a Phytium D2000-based platform/desktop. Lenovo and Nice Wall provide dozens of Phytium D2000-powered machines ranging from ￥3,999 ($530 with out VAT), so it’s unclear why the YahBoom PC is so costly.
Huawei can’t formally purchase CPUs straight from AMD or Intel until these processor makers get an acceptable export license from the U.S. Division of Commerce (which is reviewed with a presumption of denial) for a specific product household. The corporate additionally has issues ordering sufficient KunPeng 920 system-on-chips for desktops from TSMC because the latter additionally has to acquire an relevant license from the U.S. DoC.
So, to construct its premium merchandise, Huawei should purchase AMD Ryzen or Intel Core CPUs from third-party resellers or after chipmakers get a correct export license. This method could also be ok for premium merchandise aimed toward worldwide markets. Nonetheless, it’s a lot simpler for Huawei to acquire a low-end SoC from Phytium and construct a PC that runs domestically developed Linux distribution for China-bound mass-market merchandise. Nonetheless, YahBoom’s desktop primarily based on Huawei’s Qingsong motherboard is approach too costly to suit into the mass-market class.