China’s top chipmaker may be in hot water as US lawmakers call for further sanctions after Huawei ‘breakthrough’::Shares in SMIC, China’s largest contract chipmaker, plunged on Thursday, after two US congressmen called on the White House to further restrict export sales to the company.
“Hot water”? They seem pretty content about the breakthrough.
Man, US penalizing foreign breakthroughs is pathetic.
You don‘t get it. Huawei and the CCP made some propaganda about how the sanctions totally don‘t work and claimed they were able to produce a chip that is 5 years behind. It is however more likely it was a big bluff and they didn’t produce it themselves. So their plan of saying „Your sanctions only force us to innovate and will hurt you in the end so you might aswell lift them“ completely backfired. The US saw their propaganda and probably judt thought the sanctions weren‘t hard enough if China keeps getting chips supplied to them. Hot water is a nice euphemism for what China is in right now.
Where do you get that from? How do you know the chip is 5 years behind? In the article it says that people were surprised how advanced it is. Genuinely curious
The chip design is top notch. The manufacturing is 3 generations behind. Its manufactured in 7nm. Current state of the art is 3nm. So more like 3–4 years and not 5, but still behind.
We can’t say anything for certain though, since besides the manufacturing width, yields are important too. If they manage 7nm in a high yield its a completely different story than 7nm with a low yield. In a capitalist system no one would go 7nm with a low yield, but in Chinas system economical viability isn’t a priority.
The real thing that matters is if they reach “good enough”. 7nm/5nm/3nm is a useful technical milestone, and a measure of the quality of their tooling, but at the end of the day, the question is if they can make parts that fulfills a real product need without foreign dependencies.
Size is not everything-- don’t forget when Intel stumbled on 10nm repeatedly, yet they were still printing money with 14nm+++++ because the process was “good enough” to deliver a chip people wanted.
I also have to wonder if the music is going to slow down for some of the IC industry soon. Yeah, we can feed every transistor that can be fabbed into AI/ML, but flagship smartphones are getting both expensive and ridiculous. Are enough people buying a $1500 phone, whose main feature is that it folds into an origami crane, that it can drive new process nodes? Or will a mature 7nm design provide enough performance and battery life for 90% of customers? What’s the current killer app for more than a $200 phone? Maybe the camera, but image sensors have completely different manufacturing constraints.
So more like 3–4 years and not 5, but still behind
I am not sure if it is that simple. Their process is using DUV and I assume a ASML lithograpy machine they got from somewhere. The next big step and what the current leading edge uses is EUV, so a different technique.
Unless they get their hands on one of those machines, which I assume will be prevented at all costs through sanctions, they’d have to reengineer that themselves. Something they havent done even for this 7nm lithograpy machine. EUV was decades in the making with an insane amount of research spending. Even with maybe not having to start from scratch this will be a tough nut to crack.
Unless they solve this problem they might push DUV a bit further, but then hit a brick wall. So I am not sure is your estimate how far they are behind is accurate in this sense.
That said, as someone else posted. 7nm is already plenty good for a lot of stuff.
Tech blogs and the like have long compared the specs and the conclusion was a difference of 3 generations to other high end phones which I was told is a 5 year gap. And if it really had been a fully domestic chip, developing it this quickly would have been quite the achievement actually. But parts from south korea were found so that was a short celebration.
Five seems like an exaggeration. I heard around three.
probably judt thought the sanctions weren‘t hard enough
They act in their own interests, you make it sound like sanctions are the state of nature.
It’s around the level of A12 from 2018. Now, Android phones from 3 years ago are also this level, but still
They act in their own interests, you make it sound like sanctions are the state of nature.
It is common practice in China itself. It is how they have dealt with pretty much everything so far. Why is it surprising the US follows suit?
I heard 3 generations behind which is about 5 years. They also used components from south korea against sanctions. It is not fully domestic and that should hardly be a surprise.
Man, I love the amount of copium here.
Anything that makes you better little man :)
Yes thats so ridiculous, god forbid anyone but north america and part of europe can even compete
“We’re not assholes. But if we are, then they deserved it.”
deleted by creator
The fiction of the last 30 years is revealed to those with eyes to see.
All this time the capital class and their lackeys have been saying “Russia is a our superfriend now and China wants to be democratic so we are helping them by using their slave labour and don’t you feel guilty for questioning our supremely good intentions here!”
And meanwhile it’s the same old global power struggle, but you can make SO MUCH using slave labour, it was just too tempting to send every bit of our labour - even our high tech - over to their factories.
The CCP be like “oh no, I have this enormous population of exploitable laborers with minimal workers rights, sure hope some wealthy western capitalist don’t use them and make us rich in the process”.
Thats ironic as fuck. Because nowadays chinese citizens have healthcare and north americans dont
Apparently, if what you say is true, all paid for by working class north americans
The US healthcare system is poor, especially considering the considerable wealth of the US. But 91.7% of Americans have healthcare, and Canada and Mexico both have socialized healthcare.
So when you say, “north americans dont (have healthcare)”, you’re guzzling the saddest lowest IQ attempt at propaganda I’ve ever seen.
https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-brands-china-supply-chains-illegal-forced-labor-2022-12
Western capitalists getting rich off CCP forced labor.
I mean, it’s not even a question. It’s pretty openly deliberate strategy from China based entirely on their open theoretical analysis and public 5-year plans. They knew the owning class was incentivized by profits and that the ideological conditions in the West after the decline of the USSR created a blindspots. So China created the conditions for foreign investment but was super open about intellectual property, government oversight and intervention, etc. The white billionaires saw the profit potential and went for it. It was the first time in history that the West voluntarily deindustrialized itself whole hog in favor of developing a subordinate country. Sure, in the past the West moves the most toxic industries to colonies and such, but that was all the evidence China needed that the trend could be expanded.
They sold the capitalists the rope they’d be hung with, and the capitalists are still hoping they sell that rope for a profit.
you have a source for the aforementioned public information on that?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_China
Here’s the high level summary of every 5 year plan that China has produced. There are references galore.
Ultimately though, does this matter? The smartphone userbase in China and India are a combined 6 times the size of the USA’s and are growing. Furthermore, the USA imports most of their tech from China, while China keeps their wealth largely internal. Even if the USA were to completely cutoff trade with China, it’s not like China’s doing nearly as much importing of manufactured goods, especially in the low-end, and it’s not as though China would be at a loss for trade partners even if every US ally followed suit.
Cutting off trade to China, at least by what I can tell, would hurt the USA far more than China, or am I wrong?
They moved our jobs and production, and for what? Cheaper trinkets and widgets?
bigger profit margins*
the potential for cheap mass produced goods was always there, the US had the manufacturing capacity to do it pretty easily themselves
Who’s “they?”
When was the last time you compared US and Chinese economic data?
Never in any holistic manner, would you care to enlighten me?
Hint: China is not doing well and there is no clear path for their recovery.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Shares in SMIC, China’s largest contract chipmaker, plunged on Thursday, after two US congressmen called on the White House to further restrict export sales to the company.
TechInsights, a research organization based in Canada specializing in semiconductors, revealed shortly after the launch that the smartphone contained a new 5G Kirin 9000s processor developed specifically for Huawei by SMIC.
Texas Republican Michael McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was quoted by Reuters as saying he was concerned about the possibility of China trying to “get a monopoly” in the manufacture of less-advanced computer chips.
Chinese state media have touted the development as a sign the country had successfully “broken US sanctions” and “achieved technological independence” in advanced chipmaking.
Meme makers on the Chinese internet have even crowned US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo the unofficial brand ambassador for the Mate 60 series.
The memes poke fun at the idea that US sanctions, which are implemented and enforced by the US Commerce department, may have indirectly led to the launch of the new phone as China’s homegrown firms had to work with available technology.
The original article contains 706 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 74%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Chinese state media have touted the development as a sign the country had successfully “broken US sanctions” and “achieved technological independence” in advanced chipmaking
They touted about it just enough to be heard but not nearly enough for how big of a deal that would be if it actually were true. I mean most people only read about it now that the US as announced further sanctions so I have my doubt it was anything but a propaganda campaign.
Meme makers on the Chinese internet have even crowned US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo the unofficial brand ambassador for the Mate 60 series.
The memes poke fun at the idea that US sanctions, which are implemented and enforced by the US Commerce department
That isn‘t actually what the memes are really about. It was probably a backfire to photos taken of high ranking CCP officials and celebrities using iPhones because those are still huge status symbols in China. Many of them endorsed Chinese brands but privately used iPhones which is a pretty big blow to their propaganda machine. They have recently made the rounds on social media. So of course CCP shills photoshopped pictures of the US commerce secretary using Huawei who was visiting China at the moment. China also then announced their politicians are no longer allowed to carry apple products. Paired with the likelyhood that their domestic chip turns out to be a hoax, China is in quite a mess. And I didn‘t even talk about the floods in Shenzhen and Hong Kong that the CCP definitely does not want the world to see right now. It‘s a tragedy and definitely won‘t help their technology branches, many of which call these cities their homes.
domestic chip turns out to be a hoax
sauce?
South korean components were found in it pretty much immediately.
But wasn’t that either the motherboard or ram, unconnected to the processor iirc?
US crying and shitting its pants over the mere possibility of losing its top spot in the global market. I look forward to cheap computer parts. I thought the free market was a good thing. Only good when it screws over labor, huh?
So China does not allow American companies in china nor do they allow most imports. Then they steal any ip they can get ahold of. Then you complain about the free market in a totalitarian state? Yeah, nah.
If companies were so afraid of having their IP stolen, why were they tripping over themselves to work with a totalitarian state? Imaginary Property theft is rampant in all developing countries and that includes the US when it was still developing.
They stopped American companies in response to the same American action.
America is upset again that other societies are developing technologically.
Let’s see those kernel vulnerabilities!!!
All of China is making fun of Usa, and all Usamericans start crying and throwing tantrums like nasty little children. Even their seniors in parliament.
What a show.
US and ‘allies’ still have the edge. They can still stay ahead of China who they have made an independant competitor for some reason. Hopefully high spec phone prices come down.
Except millions of oppressed Chinese citizens. They are not making fun of anything lol. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/21/china-is-state-most-dangerous-to-its-own-citizens-civil-rights-report-finds
