Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power • Hacker News Board

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#111

Post by IllogicalLogic » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 8:45 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #42

forapurpose wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. helps to educate and provide opportunity to people, regardless of national origin - regardless of the arbitrary, invisible lines on a map, drawn by the powerful, in which they were born. Partly as a result, the greatest economic miracle in history has occurred since WWII (and especially since the end of the Cold War), with hundreds of millions of people pulled from millennia of hopeless, abject poverty. Anot…

Your comment is excellent, and I agree with everything you say. I will retort, however, that we Americans should not take our technological dominance for granted, just as a precious generation of carmakers and related industries had to learn what happens when foreign competitors (especially with government support) eat up domestic markets that companies like Ford and GM thought belonged to them forever. I’m not sugge…

The correlation of the rise of Europe/US and the decline of China/India (55% of world gdp at the time) is directly tied to a massive amount of illegal drugs pumped by US/England/France into China for a 100 year period.

The reaction of a society to a forced drug epedemic will create 2nd and 3rd order effects (like a closed society) that are very easy to criticize today by people who are unaware of one of the largest poisonings in modern history (done by Roosevelts and Forbes family) ...but I digress.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_%26_Company

https://imgur.com/a/eGdznWP

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#112

Post by tzahola » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 8:45 PM UTC

tormeh wrote: post #109

tzahola wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My car has 18” rims with Continental tires. This is about as related to the comment above, as yours. (By the way, the death toll of Mao’s cultural revolution clocks in around 50 million.)

Well, it's supporting your argument, as I perceived it. Germany unnecessarily suppressed groups for reasons not related to maintaining its authoritarianism. During the First World War the German army had Jews like Fritz Haber. In the Second they didn't. I don't see China doing the same. If Germany is used as a model for what we can expect from China, then the values we would get have to be adjusted upwards to compens…

Hmm, ok that makes sense. I’ve misinterpreted it as China apologetism. Mea culpa.

And yes, it’s pretty scary to think about a WWII scenario with Jewish talent on the German side...

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#113

Post by kjeetgill » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 8:49 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #96

addicted wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the vast majority of these kids would prefer to stay in the US. Clearly the solution to prevent them from taking their knowledge back to their home countries is to denigrate them politically and make it harder and more inconvenient for them to live and work here.

I would not agree with this. I went to an elite business school and my Chinese classmates all felt there was far more opportunity for them in China with an American education. They’re not stupid, they look at China and see an economy growing at 6-9% a year while the US is stuck at 1-2% and they know where the growth is for the medium-term. They also see a mature American economy that can be tough to crack even for na…

My experience matches the parent's. Of a good 70 classmates the only two who went back had trouble finding work here. I suspect your business school experience might differ from an engineering department. A substantial personality difference wouldn't surprise me.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#114

Post by allenz » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 8:53 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #35

RamshackleJ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your opinions and your characterization of my argument. I didn't say people will not think about technological problems. Despite the incredible amount of good the party has done for the people of china they are still an authoritarian regime. I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation.

They don't need to be 'good' at anything, they just will move slower than an equivalent market based system but eventually they will get there. As long as the rest of the world out-innovates them they may not catch up but do not underestimate the power of over 1 billion people, especially not when a large number of them are very smart. Have a look at China 30 years ago and China today and tell me that that authoritar…

> China isn't going full-bore on a market economy and democratic system... the Chinese in such a configuration would be absolutely un-stoppable

This is ideology. For growth, it is the outcome that matters. Democracies can make terrible decisions (Brexit) and authoritarian regimes can make great ones. In particular, government investment is a primary driver of economic growth, and China has a fabulous track record of five year plans for transportation, manufacturing, energy, technology, etc. Note that government investment represents state allocation of capital as an alternative to markets. On other aspects such as rent seeking or productivity, it is also unclear whether democracies would be better.

On the micro scale, I agree that markets are needed for efficient allocation and on this scale China is completely capitalist. It has private property rights and free markets. On issues such as consumer protections, China's markets are more free than those in the West.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#115

Post by scruple » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 8:53 PM UTC

epc wrote: post #98

worldengineer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The trend is just reverting to the mean. That's a lie. United States get 1M immigrants a year since 2000. There's over 37,000,000 legal immigrants in US. United States gets the creme of the crop from countries around the world. On the other hand, there were approximately 594,000 immigrants living in China in 2010, most from Asia. If you can live in US and make 300k-400k, you would do that in a heartbeat, vs living…

The current US government approach to immigrants, legal or otherwise, would seem designed to convince immigrants to go elsewhere. I think China will be fine given that it can simply shut down exports to the US if Trump's tariff pettiness starts to sting. Where, precisely, do you think your phones and computers are manufactured?

> The current US government approach to immigrants, legal or otherwise, would seem designed to convince immigrants to go elsewhere.

I'm curious where you live and wether or not you can actually, personally, witness the effects of legal immigration there. In SoCal, where I've spent the last decade+, what you're saying rings completely hollow, to me. I have seen literal tour buses of mainland Chinese folks touring new developments, inside of my own new development, in fact, as recently as this spring. If what you're saying were true, why aren't these folks getting the message? That they're touring these homes this way is a discussion for another day. But, as far as I can tell, the only morale panic happening about legal immigration to the United States is happening with American citizens.

> I think China will be fine given that it can simply shut down exports to the US if Trump's tariff pettiness starts to sting. Where, precisely, do you think your phones and computers are manufactured?

What does that have to do with anything?

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#116

Post by fspeech » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 9:03 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #99

wishart_washy wrote: post #44

Notes from the ground here. My undergrad was in EE at an "elite" school - I can say definitively that ~50% of the MS/Ph.d. students in EE were from China (with the other 50% largely from India). They TA'd many of the graduate level courses and were the majority of the students taking high level semiconductor design courses that centered on fabrication and nanotechnology. China's short term goal is clearly to reach pa…

Too late. China dominates in the 'jelly bean[1]' chip business. This was the bread an butter for the dozen semiconductor shops in the Bay Area during the 70's through the early naughts. As fabs shut down they became 'fabless' and had their work shipped out to TSMC. Now they exist as a genre in China in much greater numbers than they do here. Companies that will make a couple of wafers of USB + ADC + random logic kind…

As chip manufacturing goes DRAM used to be at the bottom of the ladder. Many logic fabs did DRAM first to learn the rope because the fab technology is simpler for DRAM (less layers than logic). DRAM fabs bought used equipment from logic fabs, so there were always swing capacity available. DRAM business was tough and the main challenge was yield (therefore cost and margin). I don't know if any of this has changed more recently as it certainly seems people are not bringing DRAM capacity online as expected -- maybe they are scared by the prospect that China may bring in a large amount of capacity.

The Chinese company mentioned in the article is only incidental to the story so the article title is kind of a click bait. Sure they decided to buy technology from the Taiwanese fab UMC, which is perfectly legal. UMC as a very large fab itself, could also be expected to provide the technology. For whatever reason, UMC seemed unable to deliver and had allegedly resorted to underhanded tactics instead.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#117

Post by orbital-decay » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 9:07 PM UTC

worldengineer wrote: post #87

vkou wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throughout the 20th century, the United States benefited greatly from this sort of knowledge drain, from war-torn Europe, and from the Soviet sphere of influence. The trend is just reverting to the mean.

> The trend is just reverting to the mean. That's a lie. United States get 1M immigrants a year since 2000. There's over 37,000,000 legal immigrants in US. United States gets the creme of the crop from countries around the world. On the other hand, there were approximately 594,000 immigrants living in China in 2010, most from Asia. If you can live in US and make 300k-400k, you would do that in a heartbeat, vs living…

OTOH, China doesn't seem to want immigrants either. It's close to impossible to get Chinese citizenship if one would want to, for example.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#118

Post by 394549 » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 9:12 PM UTC

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #38

RamshackleJ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your opinions and your characterization of my argument. I didn't say people will not think about technological problems. Despite the incredible amount of good the party has done for the people of china they are still an authoritarian regime. I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation.

>I don't think authoritarian regimes are good at fostering innovation. The USSR came from far behind and beat us to space. Authoritarian regimes may struggle to allocate food efficiently but they're fine at allocating scientists.

> The USSR came from far behind and beat us to space. Authoritarian regimes may struggle to allocate food efficiently but they're fine at allocating scientists.

I would say that's debatable. The USSR did beat the US to orbit (and in space station technology), but it fell short getting to the Moon, launching scientific space probes, and building a space plane.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#119

Post by allegedganon » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 9:26 PM UTC

addicted wrote: post #86

wishart_washy wrote: post #44

Notes from the ground here. My undergrad was in EE at an "elite" school - I can say definitively that ~50% of the MS/Ph.d. students in EE were from China (with the other 50% largely from India). They TA'd many of the graduate level courses and were the majority of the students taking high level semiconductor design courses that centered on fabrication and nanotechnology. China's short term goal is clearly to reach pa…

Well the vast majority of these kids would prefer to stay in the US. Clearly the solution to prevent them from taking their knowledge back to their home countries is to denigrate them politically and make it harder and more inconvenient for them to live and work here.

>Well the vast majority of these kids would prefer to stay in the US.

I'm afraid you're making assumptions here.

America is not where opportunity is these days, especially in the hardware manufacturing sector.

Re: Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power

#120

Post by jonhendry18 » Fri, Jun 22, 2018, 9:27 PM UTC

addicted wrote: post #86

wishart_washy wrote: post #44

Notes from the ground here. My undergrad was in EE at an "elite" school - I can say definitively that ~50% of the MS/Ph.d. students in EE were from China (with the other 50% largely from India). They TA'd many of the graduate level courses and were the majority of the students taking high level semiconductor design courses that centered on fabrication and nanotechnology. China's short term goal is clearly to reach pa…

Well the vast majority of these kids would prefer to stay in the US. Clearly the solution to prevent them from taking their knowledge back to their home countries is to denigrate them politically and make it harder and more inconvenient for them to live and work here.

"Well the vast majority of these kids would prefer to stay in the US."

For now.