The United States added weight to Huawei's ban, including adding all 38 Huawei subsidiaries in 21 countries and regions in the world into the 'entity list.' The ban took effect immediately.
On January 18, 2021, according to Reuters, the Trump Administration informed several Huawei suppliers, including chipmaker Intel, that licenses for selling products to Huawei would be revoked and that dozens of other applications for supply to Huawei would be rejected.
On January 15, the semiconductor industry association of the US (SIA) said in an email that the US Department of Commerce had issued an "intention to reject multiple applications for export licenses to Huawei and cancel at least one export license previously issued."
Neither the US Department of Commerce nor Intel has commented. Reuters said that kioxia, a Japanese chipmaker, also had at least one export license affected and had not been immediately contacted for comment.
On May 15, 2020, the US upgraded its sanctions against Huawei, requiring that from September 15, as long as manufacturers using US chip manufacturing technology and equipment need to obtain US licenses before supplying chips to Huawei or Hisilicon and other subsidiaries.
The ban was gradually tightened, but there were also openings.
After the ban came into effect on September 15, 2020, semiconductor manufacturers including Samsung, Qualcomm and MediaTek have applied to the United States for supply licenses. In the following few months, eight manufacturers, including AMD, Intel, Samsung, TSMC, Sony, Howay technology and Qualcomm, successively obtained licenses to supply some chips to Huawei.
On January 12, 2021, according to the science and technology innovation board daily, nearly all of Huawei's 4G electronic components, equipment and technology suppliers have been licensed by the US Department of Commerce.