Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips • Hacker News Board

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#81

Post by dirtyid » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 1:03 AM UTC

dx87 wrote: post #46

DoreenMichele wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't actually have any idea what you are saying.

They're saying that your comment is irrelevant because you're comparing current issues between the USA and China with issues between the USA and Native Americans in a completely different time period. Today's morals aren't the same as they were hundreds of years ago, so it doesn't make sense to excuse current IP theft in China by pointing out historical theft of land by the USA.

It makes sense when your view is that morals correlate to development which is time invariant. Developing nations steal IP to establish orphan industries, burn cheap and dirty coal to rapidly build industrial base, repress minorities to establish stable cultural hegemony. There are no other proven models to development, especially one on large country scales, and pretending it can be done ethically and insisting on those standards are possible when it has yet to be demonstrated is just ladder kicking hypocrisy. At some point we just have to accept that development is a dirty business full of hard moral calculus and judge progress and methods accordingly.

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#82

Post by monocasa » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 1:05 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #79

monocasa wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offgasing is common in brand new stores, even Apple ones.

If the floors are tile rather than vinyl and all the furniture is solid wood rather than veneered chipboard they almost the only outgasing will be from the products sold in store. Even in a new Apple store outgasing should generally be minimal. If you’ve been in a new store that stinks of formaldehyde I bow to your experience.

The fixtures at my Apple store use copious amounts of wood glue. I woodwork on the side and am well aware of the kinds of techniques used.

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#83

Post by onepointsixC » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 1:06 AM UTC

tomhoward wrote: post #51

onepointsixC wrote: post #32

Articles whose content contradict their headlines are rather quite frustrating. The title is "Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips" But the article itself states: "While Huawei hasn’t stopped using American chips entirely, it has reduced its reliance on U.S. suppliers or eliminated U.S. chips in phones launched since May" And it's graph shows significant usage of US chips. I'm sure Huawei is tryi…

Your comment has some validity, but the title doesn't seem false; the key point is that Huawei's new flagship product, the Mate 30... > contained no U.S. parts, according to an analysis by UBS and Fomalhaut Techno Solution

I missed the statement on the Mate 30. I guess the chart combined with other parts of the article threw me off.

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#84

Post by wozniacki » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 1:06 AM UTC

QuarterReptile wrote: post #69

rootsudo wrote: post #4

I checked out a Huawei store - they're the same asthetic as an apple store with a ton more useful tech then an ipod, macbook and imac. The phones were impressive and very affordable. We're talking $200-300 for 6gb ram devices, 128gb storage, etc. Google, Apple are right to be worried.

Their computers are also matched with Microsoft's for the tallest screen (3:2) you can get, while also being pretty high quality. If you don't want 16:9, the only other options I'm aware of are the newest Dell XPS convertible and Apple (both 16:10). I would get a Huawei Matebook except that it would really rock the boat at my work, and that's not something I want to do.

   I would get a Huawei Matebook except that it would
   really rock the boat at my work, and that's not 
   something I want to do.

Is this really a thing in American (I'm assuming here) workplaces? Are all Huawei products persona non grata or just some ? I thought it was just the P30 Pro phone and some enterprise stuff that were explicitly barred.

Could you elaborate on where things stand as of this writing, and if they are ever likely to improve, post-trade war?

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#85

Post by ummonk » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 1:07 AM UTC

m3kw9 wrote: post #62

Should add inferior in the sentence

In what way is the Mate 30 inferior?

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#86

Post by asveikau » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 1:08 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #75

mempko wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When there was a referendum asking the people in all reoublics whether to keep the Soviet Union or dismantle it, the overwhelming majority, 70+ percent, voted to keep it. The leadership dismantled it anyway. When asking why, it usually is useful to ask cui bono.

We're apparently just far enough away from the Berlin wall falling that now people want to re-litigate that the Soviet Union was bad and it was a good thing it collapsed.

I have seen people who dislike the democratic party in the US on both the left and the right adopt this stance in the context of the Trump-Russia question.

The argument goes that all the former Soviet, but current NATO/EU states (and states with factions who might want to join, like Ukraine) never wanted to leave Russian control.

I disagree with this, but I would note that it's too simple to say something is simply good/bad here. The Soviet Union despite its problems did have some notable accomplishments.

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#87

Post by onepointsixC » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 1:13 AM UTC

lsc wrote: post #72

FpUser wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that the "winner" is the one who got hurt less and can recover faster/better but it is all relative. While 2 sides are busy killing each other the third one might get the benefits

I'm just saying, from where I stand (and I'm first to recognize I'm not an expert here) it sure looks like my country is trying to make things harder for China, and is paying the price of making things harder for workers in my own country. Even if the Chinese worker is hurt more than the American worker, the American worker is still being hurt, and as far as I can tell, all involved would be better off if we traded i…

Is it really free when China had much greater tariffs on US goods than Chinese goods had come into the US? Is it really free when Chinese entities get to enjoy massive subsidies to dump products while foreign companies face nonmarket barriers?

Fundamentally it's time to wake to the fact that the CCP views the very existence of Liberal Democracies as a threat to itself [1]. It will work to undermind or extinguish then where ever it can. Facing the Soviet Union had a cost. Facing Nazi Germany had a cost. And facing the CCP will have a cost.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Number_Nine

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#88

Post by dirtyid » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 1:16 AM UTC

ausjke wrote: post #64

Huawei had to license synopsys/cadence/mentor to design their chip(which is using ARM core), if US really wants to play hardball Huawei's IC design can be killed nearly instantly once those CAD design software is forbidden. In the meantime I heard Huawei etc bought a few years' license right before the trade war, they're actually well prepared. Another way is to restrict chip manufacturing, Taiwan pretty much owns th…

>At the moment USA still has the possibility to contain IC ecosystem if it really wants to do that

It's been doing that nonstop since before Trump, Trump is merely broadcasting the actions publicly. Apart from Fujian Jinhua last year, CFUIUS / DOD / USTrade has blocked many Chinese IC acquisition attempts (including EU owned), last month US pressured TMSC to stop dealing with Huawei, ASML held back EUV delivery shortly after. The way things are escalating, the hypothetical shooting war over Taiwan might be triggered by TSMC drama instead of independence.

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#89

Post by Barrin92 » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 1:18 AM UTC

I think the US is making a big mistake by falling back to isolationism and confrontation in a sort of last-ditch attempt to reign Chinese progress in.

The prevailing quite chauvinistic attitude among many people outside of Asia is that because of their lack of political liberalism China or other Asian countries will always be stuck with copying or being the manufacturing bench. I think this will turn out to be a grave miscalculation and that the trade wars will only accelerate the decoupling and strengthen the Chinese regime's narrative to develop at all costs.

I think many people in the West really are not aware how deeply the resentment goes in Chinese society to not be bullied around ever again, the mentality really is 'better-broken jade than intact tile', and it's hard to compete with that.

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#90

Post by Cyph0n » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 1:19 AM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #52

Cyph0n wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent point. I would say it would be more impressive if China were to build its own EDA tools. At this point, I think the US should start protecting its EDA companies from Chinese investors.

I really doubt that the EDA software is really that much of an investment these days. It's the lithography tech that's the real crown jewel, and it is being protected.

> I really doubt that the EDA software is really that much of an investment these days

If EDA tools were so simple, why don't the big IC design companies -- e.g., Intel, Apple, Samsung -- just build their own in-house tools instead of paying millions in license fees?

> It's the lithography tech that's the real crown jewel, and it is being protected.

Sure, but lithography tech is useless unless you have access to solid tooling for design verification. In IC design, no one can afford to debug issues after the chip is fabricated. EDA toolchains include complex simulation software that, when combined with fab-provided models, allow you to simulate circuit behavior down to the lowest level.