FCC Blocks Two Devices Over Huawei HiSilicon Chips in First Chip-Level Ban

Until now, FCC bans targeted finished products or brands. A component-level test follows the silicon instead, so a camera or transmitter sold under a new name can still be stopped if a covered vendor's chip sits on the board. DroneXL reported that the rules took effect on Oct. 13 and that they run forward only: equipment authorized before that date keeps its authorization, and applications already pending that day are exempt unless the applicant later changes a logic-bearing component.

HiSilicon is not named on the Covered List itself. Huawei is, and DroneXL reported that a footnote on the list says each named producer includes its subsidiaries and affiliates, which brings HiSilicon's chips under the rule.

For chip designers and device makers, the practical effect is a new check at the bill-of-materials level. Any camera or video product that uses a Huawei-linked system-on-chip (SoC) and needs FCC authorization now faces the same screen, whatever the brand on the case. Voltgrid News has also tracked how far Huawei's own silicon reaches, from Ascend support in DeepSeek's code to the company's offshore financing as chip and memory costs climb.

What the chip is, and what the FCC left out

The FCC named no manufacturer, model or chip part number, DroneXL reported. Tom's Hardware, citing The Verge, identified the part as HiSilicon's Hi3516CV610 Smart Vision SoC, a surveillance-camera chip with an Arm Cortex-A7 processor, a neural processing unit (NPU) for AI features, Wi-Fi and Ethernet. That identification is secondhand; the FCC announcement as published does not give a part number.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said video devices containing surveillance chips from Covered List entities "pose an obvious and unacceptable risk to the nation and our people."

The FCC's own evidence was HiSilicon's marketing, not a finding about what the devices did with video. DroneXL noted that the legal basis is who produced the part, so the same test applies to any covered vendor's chip regardless of its function. This is a separate FCC action from the one-year waiver Intel received on foreign-made fab robots, which concerned equipment rather than chips.

What is not confirmed yet

Neither device has been identified, and neither had been authorized for sale before the action. The FCC release does not say how OET found the chips, according to DroneXL, nor whether the video transmitter was meant for drones. Huawei had not responded to requests for comment in the coverage Voltgrid reviewed.

What to watch next: whether the FCC publishes the applicants or FCC IDs, and whether it applies the same rule to other Covered List chip vendors.