US Government Can't Stop Chinese Semiconductor Advancement, Notes Former TSMC VP

[TumbleGeorge]

This is the very truth. Universities do not teach trade secrets and intellectual property, but generally available information.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Except for the US government, everybody saw this coming.

They saw it coming too but are doing it for other reasons.

The use of US developed technology

China doesn't respect IP, what they have it's mostly stolen, even their military equipment

The US doesn't respect IP either. The patent system is horribly abused or so people say.

 

[FeelinFroggy]

ASML has too much power and monopoly anyways.
Also TMSC which is Taiwanese, and Samsung, which is Korean, hold monopoly and also keep the prices artificially over inflated .
I actually welcome any future Chinese company that would challenge those. Japan is also preparing something too, but knowing them, it will take decades before anything tangible.... Dinosaurs still roam free there.

TMSC and Samsung do not have a monopoly on foundries. An argument could be made for TMSC because they have 55% of the market share. But Samsung is only 17%. The reason TSMC has risen so much is because TSMC has the most advanced production process in the world that is used by most leading fabless companies (AMD, Apple, ARM, Broadcom, MediaTek, Qualcomm and Nvidia). Intel used to have the best technology, but complacency has cause their production processes to waiver letting TSMC take the lead and increase market share against Intel's competitors.

I'd be leery to welcome any stolen Chinese technology. I love competition but China does not play by the rules and they dont care about the consumer.

 

[dragontamer5788]

The US doesn't respect IP either. The patent system is horribly abused or so people say.

That's all well and good but IP is somewhat irrelevant here.

The entire field of high-end chipmaking is under corporate secrets, not under the regime of patent law. Intel, TSMC, etc. etc. do NOT publish their secrets in the form of patents. They prefer to keep them secret. Patent law is about encouraging inventors to publish their designs to the public, so that the public can (eventually) copy the design when the patent expires. Or so the theory goes anyway. But in the case of chipmaking, the secrecy is worth far more than the patent protection / monopoly powers you gain.

 

[R0H1T]

And both Intel/AMD traded it relatively cheaply with Zhaoxin/Hygon(?) to not fall in the bad graces of CCP.

 

[Easo]

Finally the reality is starting to dawn.
And no, they did not steal everything (that's very convenient argument/excuse, though). Time to understand that 1.4 billion people and economy that large with huge dedicated goverment support WILL have noticable technological advancement on their own.

I simply suggest it's time to think about the inevitable future, with all the good and bad that it entails.

 

[AnotherReader]

Finally the reality is starting to dawn.
And no, they did not steal everything (that's very convenient argument/excuse, though). Time to understand that 1.4 billion people and economy that large with huge dedicated goverment support WILL have noticable technological advancement on their own.

I simply suggest it's time to think about the inevitable future, with all the good and bad that it entails.

Only racists and xenophobes doubt the capability of China's engineers. Recently, YMTC shipped the densest NAND in the world. However, you are naïve if you believe that there's no possibility of industrial espionage. SMIC has done that in the past with the victim being TSMC.

 

[dragontamer5788]

And no, they did not steal everything (that's very convenient argument/excuse, though). Time to understand that 1.4 billion people and economy that large with huge dedicated goverment support WILL have noticable technological advancement on their own.

They didn't steal everything, but they stole at least ARM-China, as well as a high-rate of corporate hackers who are looking for something.

A major issue is that companies are in charge of a company's cyberdefense. There's no national level cyberdefense group (well... there is one for the Army / DoD for example, but they aren't in charge of defending like Microsoft). And to be honest, I don't know if we want government meddling in corporation's private cybersecurity details anyway. But on the flip-side, Chinese hackers are likely state-sponsored. So its a national-level hacking group attacking only a corporate-level defense, its no contest. They'll get in.

So yeah, we need to be on the lookout for corporate thieves, which today are just hackers on the internet.

---------

As I said before: reaching top-tier levels of chipmaking is an existential crisis for China. China will accomplish it because they need to accomplish it before they attack Taiwan (like the rest of the world, China remains dependent on Taiwan's chips, so China can't start a war until they cut that dependency). So even without stealing, China will funnel a trillion bucks into this problem and get it done eventually. But they'll steal what they can to get things going faster.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

The best thing to do is to work with the chinese, not push them out and make them feel seperated. Imagine the technological clout if the US and China worked together. Imo it's time to (try) and end all this mistrust crap. If you where working with someone then there would be no need to steal their data, when it is open to both parties. But i guess that is a pipe dream that will never happen, not in any of our lifetimes anyway.

 

[dragontamer5788]

The best thing to do is to work with the chinese, not push them out and make them feel seperated. Imagine the technological clout if the US and China worked together. Imo it's time to (try) and end all this mistrust crap. If you where working with someone then there would be no need to steal their data, when it is open to both parties. But i guess that is a pipe dream that will never happen, not in any of our lifetimes anyway.

We are working together. Foxconn factories create iPhones. EDIT: In fact China is our biggest source of imports, while being the 3rd largest importer of US Goods themselves. We literally import/export more trade to China than UK and Japan. Despite our somewhat adversarial relationship with China, we're very closely tied together with trade. So none of the moneymakers / market participants want war.

The issue is that the friction in our value systems is beginning to heat up, specifically over the question of Taiwan. And all the worlds diplomats can't think up a solution to the problem. China believes Taiwan to be Chinese territory, while USA sees Taiwan as a trusted ally (and "agrees" with China that "The owner of Taiwan is the owner of China", see One China Policy). But strategically, we both know we're bullshitting each other on purpose to try to make the peace work out. EDIT: And we've kept the bullshit up between our two states because its in the best interest for peace. But we're reaching a time where that "One China Policy" will finally be tested, due to just how our politics have shifted over the last 50 years.

 

[Random_User]

You can complain about "national security" all you want. But All it was about US/EU/Western corporation to expose own IP to the China, for the benefit of bigger profits/margins. And it was approved by governments. Not the other way around.
It's the companies led the HW to be built there, and as a result having keys to every door in the hands of someone, the politics now call "enemies", but still rely on and trade with by any possible opportunity.
I don't even mentions that by moving production overseas, they undermined the capability of the own nations to develop and produce, as it has high intellectual requirements to make such complex stuff. I think the Asia overall already has more people capable to work in foundries, than e.g. US/EU. Also by shortening the national jobs amount, for the said devices production.
Along with creating huge toll and burden on ecology, due transportation and logistics, that cause the enormous amount of oil and fuel consumption and pollutions. All this for the sake of quick buck in the pockets of very few, as this doesn't benefit any average citizen.

Now with the inability to make stuff "in-house", due to lack of workforce, original materials, etc and concentration of this in China, the western world is already in trap, might even forever.

And all this copyright laws are not very effective, if the pockets are deep enough. In wrong hands, the IP can take everyone hostage of imposed extortions.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

Only racists and xenophobes doubt the capability of China's engineers. Recently, YMTC shipped the densest NAND in the world. However, you are naïve if you believe that there's no possibility of industrial espionage. SMIC has done that in the past with the victim being TSMC.

I'm interested. The Reuters article doesn't have one letter of evidence of anything with an IP development example. It also assumes that the court is competent in engineering architectures and is able to detect plagiarism, for example by looking at an electron microscope picture of the printed logic in the chips. I am fully confident that the Chinese have given up defending themselves and paid for the settlement just so they don't waste their time with nonsense.

 

[JohH]

Couldn't the US government start global thermonuclear war? So it could stop semiconductor advancement if that was its goal.

But we all know that's not its goal. It only wants to slow the PRC's semiconductor advancement to deter it from invading Taiwan without concern for serious economic consequences.

 

[AnotherReader]

I'm interested. The Reuters article doesn't have one letter of evidence of anything with an IP development example. It also assumes that the court is competent in engineering architectures and is able to detect plagiarism, for example by looking at an electron microscope picture of the printed logic in the chips. I am fully confident that the Chinese have given up defending themselves and paid for the settlement just so they don't waste their time with nonsense.

It's a very simple tradeoff: develop your own using ten times the dollars or acquire the right information for much less. Then there's what ARM China had to face recently. Corporate espionage isn't new and the US also used IP theft during the industrial revolution. I would be very surprised if TSMC or Samsung hadn't been targeted by the Chinese.

 

[Random_User]

But we all know that's not its goal. It only wants to without concern for serious economic consequences.

By slowing the PRC's semiconductor advancement, it makes Taiwan even more of potential prey than if it had own developed industry. And it's only slowing down. With or without Taiwan, PRC already has more electronics and chips produced than any country. This is inevitable. Nobody should have "fed the beast" in the first place.

Anyway, the most of silicon and other materials are still in China's control. Gotta negotiate that part, prior to produce some fancy chips.

 

[AnotherReader]

Couldn't the US government start global thermonuclear war? So it could stop semiconductor advancement if that was its goal.

But we all know that's not its goal. It only wants to slow the PRC's semiconductor advancement to deter it from invading Taiwan without concern for serious economic consequences.

Ukraine's vigourous defence against Russia would have caused many in the PRC and PLA to re-evaluate any invasion plans of Taiwan. In any case, the Chinese politicians are longer term thinkers than their Western counterparts, and they can afford to wait until the situation is more favourable. It can also be useful to keep Taiwan independent to whip up nationalist sentiment when needed.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Ukraine's vigourous defence against Russia would have caused many in the PRC and PLA to re-evaluate any invasion plans of Taiwan. In any case, the Chinese politicians are longer term thinkers than their Western counterparts, and they can afford to wait until the situation is more favourable. It can also be useful to keep Taiwan independent to whip up nationalist sentiment when needed.

There's pros and cons to everything. All that "forward thinking" has left China with heaps of pig-iron in exchange for a massive famine before. And today, the "forward thinking" leads to false-cities containing false-buildings that no one lives in and only buys for investments, as well as graveyards of electric-vehicles produced so that various Chinese-connected companies meet production goals (but never actually sell / use in practice). Case in point: Evergrande, which has elements of Enron on top of all this bullshit but so much worse (IE: Evergrande employees participate in the scheme with their retirement money).

That is to say: China can try to be forward thinking at the top-level, but its own population is corrupt enough that they end up goosing the metrics and falsifying what's going on. By the time things reach implementation at the bottom level, issues are abound. In the USA, when companies (ex: Enron) perform such activities, they die. Its not quite so clear what Evergrande needs to do in China however, dying would arguably be best but they've reached too-big-to-fail status.

USA is a bit more short-term in terms of thinking, but we're also truer to the reality of any situation. Yes, we have our own issues, but generally speaking, we figure out when there's blatant corruption (be it in the government, or in terrible companies), and deal with the issue more promptly than China does. There's pros/cons to both approaches, but I wouldn't necessarily say one way is obviously superior than the other. We probably have stuff to learn from each other in any case.

------------

The issue, militarily speaking, all comes down to US Warships vs Chinese Military (Navy / Missile Force). If China waits too long, USA upgrades to next generation in 2030s and China loses the opportunity to do anything to Taiwan. There's questions if China's hypersonic ship-killing missiles can home-in and destroy USA's 1980s-era warships, but what about next decade's 2030-era Stealth Destroyers? Do those hypersonic missiles (still untested in reality btw) hit the next-generation warship?

If China wants to make a move on Taiwan, they are on a clock. The best time to strike is when USA is weakest, and USA is weakest in the 2020s decade. If China fails to strike this decade, they lose the opportunity until 2050 or so, when the 2030-era Destroyers / fleet will finally be looking obsolete (or, China pins their hopes on further upgraded missiles that can consistently hit stealth Destroyers of the future).

So the long-term and short-term goals are at play here. If China is ever to conduct a military strike, the 2020s is seemingly the best time. And that's looking forward over the next 50 years.

DDG(X) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This is it, right here, that's seemingly causing the ruckus. 2028 (planned). The Chinese Destroyer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_055_destroyer) is modern and stealthy, and backed up by a significant missile force in the hypothetical fight with Taiwan. So China has the technological advantage in the Destroyer/Cruiser class of naval ships... but only for the next few years.

I'm not saying China "will" make a move. There's a good chance this all plays out peacefully with mild threats and saber rattling. But at the "baseline" of all this diplomacy are the Admirals wargaming the capabilities of these ships, and deciding which words can be backed up with the right kinds of guns.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Well, I guess that the moral of the story is....

One country doesn't control the world.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

Well, I guess that the moral of the story is....

One country doesn't control the world.

Though they like to think they do

 

[Minus Infinity]

from day 1 I've said US sanctions will just accelerate China's efforts on it's own semiconductors. Give it 5 years and the sanctions will have only really hurt USA and EU while China is very competitive . They've lit a fire under their avowed enemy. I'm not making any comment about how China will achieve their goals, just that they will.

 

[R-T-B]

Except for the US government, everybody saw this coming.

I mean stopping them was never the goal. It's always been a delaying game. Frankly I don't see how denying them technology for free could literally cause their efforts to accelerate, as some here claim. It won't. What it WILL do is make them pour more money to achieve the same result in more time.

Note I really don't agree with this and think the whole thing is silly since the former admin started the trade war in the first place, but I can see very clearly what the intent is here.

 

[R0H1T]

So none of the moneymakers / market participants want war.

This isn't war, this is about who gets the bigger/lion's share of the pie. The biggest exports out of China, from a single brand, are probably that of Apple so it's not like all that export is enriching just the Chinese!

In the end you could argue no one wins in a war but it can always enrich the right people! The ones making money off these conflicts, including the super rich, generally tend get wealthier eventually. Even if it's cyber rattling there's always money to be made at someone else's expense & that someone else is often the middle/lower class

 

[AusWolf]

I mean stopping them was never the goal. It's always been a delaying game. Frankly I don't see how denying them technology for free could literally cause their efforts to accelerate, as some here claim. It won't. What it WILL do is make them pour more money to achieve the same result in more time.

Note I really don't agree with this and think the whole thing is silly since the former admin started the trade war in the first place, but I can see very clearly what the intent is here.

I see the intent, too. All I'm saying is, it's the wrong means. Like you said, it'll only make China pour a ton of money into development, which will have some impact sooner or later. Eventually, they're gonna be independent from Western tech. Who knows what they'll do after.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Eventually, they're gonna be independent from Western Taiwan's tech.

Come on, we all know where this is going to go.

Fab-investments in China doesn't make China independent from the West. It makes them independent from Taiwan. "The West" doesn't make chips. Samsung (aka: Korea) and TSMC (aka: Taiwan) makes chips.

 

[PapaTaipei]

Being considered an enemy of the US is dangerous, being considered his friend is fatal. Remember who said that? The US is still the country in the world with the biggest espionage potential via it's total control of computer software and hardware to this day. There is nothing you can argue against that. Every intel agencies around the world know that. And then there is the lies and total disrespect for the international laws. Remember Colin Powel? Remember the Kuwaiti babies scam? The world is watching us right now. And they are not pleased.