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Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

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Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#161

Post by lsc »

onepointsixC wrote: post #103
lsc wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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? so you are saying that a trade war is successful if there are fewer barriers at the end than at the beginning? That's a reasonable definition, but that would benefit both part…

>I mean, one could argue that free trade (well, more trade) is going to make your society more free in general, is going to introduce more ideas and things like that, I suppose, and you could also argue that trading more with a country makes it less likely you will go to war with them, but these things aren't really about crushing your competitor. One who would argue something like that in the face of the decidedly n…

I freely admit that I don't know a whole lot about China, and even less about the government of China. But I do know a fair number of people who are or were Chinese citizens who either now work here or do a lot of business with the US.

That's what I mean by trade spreading ideas. These people clearly have learned a lot from American culture (and I have learned a lot from them) - I personally think that when trying to get things done, the more people you have from different backgrounds, the more different ideas you have, and the more likely you are to come up with a good solution.

(And further, this trade war, as I understand it, isn't about talking the CCP into treating it's citizens better, it's about tariffs and subsidies, matters with far less moral force.)

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#162

Post by thawaway1837 »

Cyph0n wrote: post #120
monocasa wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You always get screwed in niche B2B on a single seat license. There's no way the chip manufacturers are actually spending anywhere near that much. And they really aren't that complex. China has more than enough capability to reproduce them. I guess I'm not sure how to prove a negative here. What do you think is so special about EDA software that isn't fairly easy replicable? Other than the fab design rules, which if…

And I’m not sure why you still think that EDA tools are so simple. I guess we’re at an impasse, then. Going back to my first comment: I would be extremely impressed if China is able to build a home-grown, state-of-the-art EDA toolchain. I also still think that the US should work to protect its existing advantage in this area.

The poster isn’t saying they are simple. The poster is claiming they are complex enough that they are non trivial to create and maintain, and not expensive enough that it’s worth it for these companies to go through the effort to create an alternative. (50k per seat, which almost certainly is lower on an enterprise license, is about 20-25% of the cost of an employee, and probably lower when you consider the non salary costs of an employee such as benefits, payroll taxes, office seat rent, food, etc). The equation obviously changes when the lack of availability of the tool is an existential threat and therefore worth billions.

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#163

Post by thawaway1837 »

pochamago wrote: post #140
simonblack wrote: post #49

"Once bitten, twice shy." "Never turn away a paying customer." Once those markets go, they never come back. And you're on the slippery slope to irrelevance.

That's a two way street, there are plenty of American companies switching to Philippine or Vietnamese manufacturers that won't ever go back to sourcing from China

Yup. So the US has created a new competitor and didn’t gain anything in the bargain other than paying for the transition.

It would be one thing if this was done after, say, the TPP that ensured that Phillipines and Vietnam created an IP a regime that protected US company interests before they started manufacturing there, but that’s not what happened.

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#164

Post by 80386 »

wozniacki wrote: post #84
QuarterReptile wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

IME, workplaces are all HP or Dell. Nobody in America uses Huawei anything - I was a little surprised when I went to Europe and saw signs for Huawei phone accessories.

Americans who have even a vague understanding of technology typically assume everything is backdoored by at least one government. So the Intel Management Engine is a fed backdoor, Yandex forwards all your mail to the KGB, Huawei spies on you for the Chicoms, and so on. And the Chinese have a reputation for industrial espionage, so nobody would use Huawei at work.

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#165

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

fluffything wrote: post #150
throwGuardian wrote: post #144

The be honest, American companies never had a monopoly in any of the parts needed to build a commercially viable phone. Unlike say in the PC world, where the dominant OS/Software stack has an almost impenetrable reliance on x86, phones were mostly ARM based (in an attempt to prevent Intel's chokehold). And communication standards require FRAND patent grants allowing anyone to build for the spec. That said, even as re…

> Unlike say in the PC world, where the dominant OS/Software stack has an almost impenetrable reliance on x86 Huawei also makes its own x86 chips, GPUs, and even FPGAs (e.g. TPU-like systems), and while Huawei Cloud still runs other vendors hardware, it's becoming more and more "Huawei-hardware only" each quarter. I think the US has not realized yet how good it had it, and how much it has screwed things up. The EU, R…

This development is a boon for users worldwide. At the beginning they might just influence pricing, but I bet after a decade or two they will start competing on features.

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#166

Post by OnlineGladiator »

pm90 wrote: post #149
OnlineGladiator wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You never lived in a communist state, have you? Do you even realize that even basic things were fucked up beyond belief/comprehension to the average american. (perhaps not, to the average foreigner that have lived in failed states). I haven't, but why does it matter? I'm not saying communism is better than democracy, nor did I imply it. Things have been way more fucked up in North Korea longer than the Soviet Union…

Please stop digging further into the hole you've dug. The theory you posit is that Semiconductors were key to the fall of the Soviet Union, and many helpful people have pointed out fallacies in that argument. Your counter is not a very good one. > I think most people on HN are familiar with the story of how computers won WWII, where Von Neumann used them to decipher German and Japanese encrypted communications. Also…

> The theory you posit is that Semiconductors were key to the fall of the Soviet Union

Had the Soviets developed IC technology and the US failed to do so, do you still believe the Cold War would have turned out roughly the same? I suspect it would have bolstered the Soviet economy, allowed them to develop technology faster than their adversaries, and ultimately win. You're right, this is a guess, because it's impossible to know. I'm also not pretending it's an infallible argument, just as others have pointed out flaws in your theory (that the USSR failed because it lagged behind in terms of economic growth) elsewhere in this thread. I feel like you're focusing on the end of the Cold War, and I'm looking earlier and how it could have influenced those later conditions. It's like trying to understand Germany in the 1930's without considering WW1 - there's a reason it developed that way.

I don't think there was only 1 key thing that decided victory of the Cold War, I believe there were many key things. To clarify, a key thing is something important enough by itself to swing the pendulum either way. I already mentioned the development of IC technology by the US and the Chernobyl failure by the Soviets.

Anyway, I appreciate your perspective. Agree to disagree.

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#168

Post by t0ddbonzalez »

fluffything wrote: post #150
throwGuardian wrote: post #144

The be honest, American companies never had a monopoly in any of the parts needed to build a commercially viable phone. Unlike say in the PC world, where the dominant OS/Software stack has an almost impenetrable reliance on x86, phones were mostly ARM based (in an attempt to prevent Intel's chokehold). And communication standards require FRAND patent grants allowing anyone to build for the spec. That said, even as re…

> Unlike say in the PC world, where the dominant OS/Software stack has an almost impenetrable reliance on x86 Huawei also makes its own x86 chips, GPUs, and even FPGAs (e.g. TPU-like systems), and while Huawei Cloud still runs other vendors hardware, it's becoming more and more "Huawei-hardware only" each quarter. I think the US has not realized yet how good it had it, and how much it has screwed things up. The EU, R…

> 'Right now, e.g., the EU is on the "let's ban all Huawei products, China spies on us!" boat'

Really? Citation please.

Mike Pompeo's been going around Europe threatening dire consequences for any country which uses Huawei tech ("We won't work with allies that use Huawei equipment in their 5G networks", etc.), but I haven't heard of any calls for a ban at EU level...

Can you show me some proof that the EU wants to ban Huawei products?

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#169

Post by lsc »

esqqfskaw wrote: post #125
lsc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And obviously it's not so great for the US. There's a lot of confusion, I think, about how you "win" a trade war; as far as I can tell, autarchy is pretty bad for all involved; trade wars seem like a thing where everyone loses and the 'win' comes from winding down the trade war and trading again.

This seems more like an issue with people being out of touch with the theoretical side of war. War, as a concept, has been treated as simply being another means of compelling cooperation since as far back as Sun Tzu. Although western war philosophy has been equally influenced by more recent figures like Carl Von Clausewitz. The US military even acknowledges similar thinking through modern concepts like the DIME model…

I... think that in the modern era, "real war" is a different sort of thing from "trade war" - a difference in kind, not degree, in a way that just wasn't so when Tzu wrote.

The fact of the matter is that both the US and China could survive (albeit with a lower standard of living) without external trade entirely. I don't think the same could be said for an all-out war.

An all-out war between the two countries would likely kill most of us and put the standard of living of the few survivors below what you and I would call 'civilization' - one side might lose harder than the other, sure, but the consequences would be essentially unthinkable for both.

Re: Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips

#170

Post by krn »

krn wrote: post #145

How likely it is that Huawei got access to the technology behind Samsung's Exynos[1] to speed up the development of their own ARM chips? At least that's what happened with Samsung's foldable screen technology[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exynos [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-29/south-kor...

Where I am coming from[1]:

> CNEX, a microchip company backed by Microsoft and Dell, has filed new allegations in a Texas lawsuit accusing Chinese tech giant Huawei and one of its executives of stealing trade secrets.

> It's the latest filing in a suit set to go to trial June 3. CNEX claims that Huawei spent years trying to steal its data storage secrets.

And also[2]:

> "We expect other nations will want to become self-sufficient in critical technologies. That's what we'd expect of a responsible government," he said. "The issue isn't that China has set out to do that. It's that part of their industrial policy, part of the way they try to accomplish that, is state-sponsored theft or creating an environment that rewards or turns a blind eye to it."

> He pointed to evidence of such behavior allegedly linked to the "Made in China 2025" strategic plan. The Chinese government introduced the plan in 2015, designed to reduce dependence on imported technology in 10 priority industries including robotics, IT, aviation, railway transport and biopharma. "We've charged cases, I believe, in eight of those 10 sectors, IP theft cases," Hickey said.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/22/huawei-executive-accusetd-of...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/23/chinese-theft-of-trade-secre...

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