Taiwan bucks world trend to be No. 1 in semiconductor equipment spending • Hacker News Board

Re: Taiwan bucks world trend to be No. 1 in semiconductor equipment spending

#21

Post by thefounder » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 11:53 AM UTC

edraferi wrote: post #17

thefounder wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because all this "national security" is really about trade not national security. Trump declared national security on steel, cars and pretty much any important industry that US didn't lead.

Incorrect. While the Trump administration is more enthusiastic about aggressive intervention in commerce in general, the recent sanctions are the culmination of over a decade of bad behavior by Huawei, recognized by many countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei

How were the mini-vans from Canada a national security threat?

As far as technology is concerned US is using its corporations(Apple, Cisco, microsoft etc) for espionage as well so there is nothing new here.

Re: Taiwan bucks world trend to be No. 1 in semiconductor equipment spending

#22

Post by realradicalwash » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 11:56 AM UTC

edraferi wrote: post #17

thefounder wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because all this "national security" is really about trade not national security. Trump declared national security on steel, cars and pretty much any important industry that US didn't lead.

Incorrect. While the Trump administration is more enthusiastic about aggressive intervention in commerce in general, the recent sanctions are the culmination of over a decade of bad behavior by Huawei, recognized by many countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei

I see lots of accusations, but very little evidence

Re: Taiwan bucks world trend to be No. 1 in semiconductor equipment spending

#23

Post by Faark » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 1:10 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #19

StudentStuff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newer nodes are hellishly expensive to develop, ballooning in cost over previous nodes. Global Foundries and most others are not working on more advanced nodes than 14nm, leaving just TSMC & Samsung with 7nm fabs. Intel has 10nm kinda crappily working, turning out low end chips that are mostly dead silicon (due to process issues). We're definitely hitting a silicon bottleneck, the physical barriers are very real, and…

Global Foundries has a 12nm for most of the new AMD CPUs.[1] I’ve heard the difference between processes at different companies is just marketing talk but I’ll let someone knowledgeable chime in. [1] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/microarchitectures/zen%2B

It's more about future developments, and GF seems to have given up on that front: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17854065

Re: Taiwan bucks world trend to be No. 1 in semiconductor equipment spending

#24

Post by kingosticks » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 1:10 PM UTC

tooltalk wrote: post #15

chvid wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mainland China is by far Taiwan's biggest trading partner. If you were TSMC or the Taiwan government - why would you risk that relationship?

> Mainland China is by far Taiwan's biggest trading partner. That's true for most neighboring Asian countries. But I'm also guessing that most fabless customers are American. Sure, there are Chinese fabless chipmakers such as HiSilicon (Huawei), Tsinghua Unigroup, but nowhere as big as Apple, Qualcomm, or AMD.

Where else would Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD (don't forget Broadcom too) go for their cutting edge silicon? Samsung couldn't handle that demand. I think they can pretty much do what they want when it comes to maintaining their business with China.

Re: Taiwan bucks world trend to be No. 1 in semiconductor equipment spending

#25

Post by imglorp » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

thefounder wrote: post #21

edraferi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. While the Trump administration is more enthusiastic about aggressive intervention in commerce in general, the recent sanctions are the culmination of over a decade of bad behavior by Huawei, recognized by many countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei

How were the mini-vans from Canada a national security threat? As far as technology is concerned US is using its corporations(Apple, Cisco, microsoft etc) for espionage as well so there is nothing new here.

I think the assertion is that US has lost core competency at things like steel and cars, so by making it harder to bring in mini-vans from Canada or whatever, they're proposing a magic rebirth of those industries in country. Those are the same competencies we'd need if we wanted to build tanks or battleships or bombers for another assault on Normandy. Which we don't, that was important 80 years ago but not now.

The reality of course is probably more like pandering to steel and auto workers.

Re: Taiwan bucks world trend to be No. 1 in semiconductor equipment spending

#26

Post by tntn » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 2:38 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #19

StudentStuff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newer nodes are hellishly expensive to develop, ballooning in cost over previous nodes. Global Foundries and most others are not working on more advanced nodes than 14nm, leaving just TSMC & Samsung with 7nm fabs. Intel has 10nm kinda crappily working, turning out low end chips that are mostly dead silicon (due to process issues). We're definitely hitting a silicon bottleneck, the physical barriers are very real, and…

Global Foundries has a 12nm for most of the new AMD CPUs.[1] I’ve heard the difference between processes at different companies is just marketing talk but I’ll let someone knowledgeable chime in. [1] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/microarchitectures/zen%2B

Note that wikichip redirects 12nm to 14nm. TSMC calls their 14nm node 16/12nm. All the 12,14,16 nm nodes from the various fabs are nearly the same.

Re: Taiwan bucks world trend to be No. 1 in semiconductor equipment spending

#27

Post by pteraspidomorph » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

lallysingh wrote: post #20

emmelaich wrote: post #18

aside: Taipei Times please get a tls site.

This may have something to do to with making sure mainland doesn't block them.

They don't seem to stricly rely on the mainland for connectivity, if you look at https://www.submarinecablemap.com/

Although, after a quick check, my own access route seems to touch on Hong Kong (EU -> US -> Pacific).

Re: Taiwan bucks world trend to be No. 1 in semiconductor equipment spending

#28

Post by i_am_proteus » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 3:37 PM UTC

adinobro wrote: post #5

adamzhou wrote: post #4

TSMC is selling chips to Huawei under war pressure of the Chinese government. TSMC should stop the supply.

I'm just curious why you think a Taiwanese company should stop selling to a Chinese company based on statement/policy of a foreign country? It is obviously in their best financial interest to sell to Huawei. Why should they stop?

Communist China intends to conquer Taiwan. If that happens, all Taiwanese companies will be under the de facto control of the Chinese Communist Party. Selling to Huawei most likely aids Communist China in acheiving it's long-term goal of conquering Taiwan.

So if the owners of a Taiwanese company prefer to control the company rather than cede de facto control to the Chinese Communist Party, this seems entirely reasonable.

Re: Taiwan bucks world trend to be No. 1 in semiconductor equipment spending

#29

Post by kalleboo » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 4:26 PM UTC

pteraspidomorph wrote: post #27

lallysingh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may have something to do to with making sure mainland doesn't block them.

They don't seem to stricly rely on the mainland for connectivity, if you look at https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ Although, after a quick check, my own access route seems to touch on Hong Kong (EU -> US -> Pacific).

From Japan I'm going straight from Osaka -> Taipei through NTT

Re: Taiwan bucks world trend to be No. 1 in semiconductor equipment spending

#30

Post by dfrage » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

i_am_proteus wrote: post #28

adinobro wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just curious why you think a Taiwanese company should stop selling to a Chinese company based on statement/policy of a foreign country? It is obviously in their best financial interest to sell to Huawei. Why should they stop?

Communist China intends to conquer Taiwan. If that happens, all Taiwanese companies will be under the de facto control of the Chinese Communist Party. Selling to Huawei most likely aids Communist China in acheiving it's long-term goal of conquering Taiwan. So if the owners of a Taiwanese company prefer to control the company rather than cede de facto control to the Chinese Communist Party, this seems entirely reasona…

If I was the Taiwanese leadership, I'd make it very clear we'd prepositioned enough explosives that in a matter of hours all the top fabs and the like could be turned into junk, denying the PRC these crown jewels.

Just speaking for myself, I've got plans for the inevitable disruptions such a war would create. We'd be throwing away a lot less electronic gear for quite some time.