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TSMC plans to halt chip supplies to Huawei in 2 months

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: TSMC plans to halt chip supplies to Huawei in 2 months

#411

Post by AsyncAwait »

fermienrico wrote: post #192
AsyncAwait wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, on the other hand, is China semiregularly bombing hospitals in the Middle East? You can cherry-pick certain facts to suit you either way. As for "free press", the U.S. has the appearance of free press that is shockingly uniform on issues of war for example, controlled by very few entities in total.

Huh? Have you looked at American press? The history is filled with literally thousands of articles condemning the government in every aspect of its operations. Including the NPR which comes out with stuff like this: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/31/690363402/how-the-cia-overthr... American press is brutal, you like it or not. If US is bombing hospitals in the middle east, there are news papers writing about it. Btw, wo…

Yeah, I have seen that exact American press.

The NPR story is about a coup that happened in the 50s, so not much you can do about ti today. They're not saying "don't escalate with Iran today, we did a lot to wrong them too". They didn't say don't go to Iraq or Vietnam pre-invasion.

Even in China you can say that Mao did this and this wrong, because guess what? He's dead and that's no longer relevant.

A good press opposes things when there's something that could still be done about it.

As for their criticisms of Trump, it's more about decorum and his lack of polish/civility rather than some hard-core policy disagreements from what I've seen.

Re: TSMC plans to halt chip supplies to Huawei in 2 months

#412

Post by dang »

greatjack613 wrote: post #394
dang wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys need to understand that there are many categories of users who might post something like that in good faith. First, a lot of Westerners hold anti-Western views—for whatever reason. This leads them to pro-China positions as a matter of tactics—the enemy of my enemy etc. Second, a lot of Westerners hold anti-US views. That's similar to category 1 but different. We see this from some Canadian, Australian, and E…

Thank you for the well written and thought out response. I do agree with you that there are users who would post that in good faith, and I think your 4 categories of people make sense. My concern was based on intuition which in turn was based on the fact that I have seen a lot more pro ccp comments in recent months on HN, as well as seeing that people who openly question the ccp in ways such as their human rights rec…

I think what you're perceiving as happening in HN comments is a consequence of the macro social/geopolitical trend. HN can't be immune from those.

There is a growing rift between the West and China, and especially between the U.S. and China. It has complex interactions with growing political divisions in the West (and especially the U.S.). This cluster of topics is being increasingly covered in Western media, in an increasingly polarized way. HN users are not coming to HN to talk about this stuff from a blank slate—they're coming with pre-existing views that are conditioned by whatever media and online sources they're engaged with, as well as by their own life experience, as I described above.

What all that means is that we're likely to continue to see more pro- and anti- comments on China-related topics, for reasons that are easily explained by the dynamics in our own societies. Reaching for "CCP shill" as an explanation is unnecessary, and to some extent is harmful because it reflects an assumption that no one could hold certain views in good faith, when we know for a fact that some people in fact do hold those views in good faith—again, for reasons of their own life experience.

This does not imply that we're closed to investigating claims of abuse and manipulation. On the contrary, our contract with HN users is that if someone is worried about abuse, they're always welcome to let us know at hn@ycombinator.com and we will always take a look. I wrote new code the other day to help with such investigations. Another part of our contract with HN users is that we will tell the truth about what we find. The truth is that we haven't found even a trace of anything like that on HN—just a lot of human beings with very different backgrounds and very strong feelings. There's more about this at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23839602 from a couple days ago.

Re: TSMC plans to halt chip supplies to Huawei in 2 months

#413

Post by oblio »

ethbro wrote: post #379
thewarrior wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is essentially a Manhattan project like initiative. It doesn’t have to happen overnight. China now has some of the best universities doing research in optics. If it happens in 5 years what will ASML do then ? The west’s monopoly on this sector would be finished. At this point China has no choice but to develop the tech or be forced to not have processors. Time will tell. Given that hard power is being used to pu…

But can they afford to fund it alone? The Soviet Union didn't collapse because a lack of capability. They collapsed because it was too expensive to forge their own way, when most of the world could pool capital via free trade. China is big. But the rest of the world is bigger. And despotic regimes inclined to trade with an embargoed state aren't typically the most flush economic partners.

The rest of the world is not united. And China has definitely learned from the Soviet lessons.

Re: TSMC plans to halt chip supplies to Huawei in 2 months

#414

Post by thu2111 »

sct202 wrote: post #392
thu2111 wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot come from US fabs! People here are talking like Intel fabs have all ceased to exist or something. They haven't. It's really Europe that needs to panic about China/Taiwan (where there are NO firms that can manufacture semiconductors at scale), but, they aren't of course.

Intel has fabs but they don't make anything except Intel products. They tried a few years ago to set up a contract foundry business, but it didn't work out despite signing some big deals initially (Nokia).

No, but if TSMC was destroyed in a war or captured by the PRC, then suddenly their fabs would be a lot more attractive for contract fab users.

Re: TSMC plans to halt chip supplies to Huawei in 2 months

#415

Post by thewarrior »

ethbro wrote: post #408
thewarrior wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what they need to fund. I don’t see why an investment of say 200 billion dollars over 5-7 years can’t bring them to the forefront in chip making. They have forex reserves in the trillions. SMIC which is their Intel raised 7 billion dollars last week from investors inside China. That’s on top of what the government is putting in. People underestimate the resources at chinas disposal.

China's economy looks very different if the world starts treating them differently. All while they're attempting to transition their economy from lowest-cost manufacturer to value-add. It's benefited from 20 years of optimistic free market access. No doubt they'll find trading partners, but it's not going to look anything like the open doors they've been used to. And they're going to start finding that their domestic…

Exports are 17 % of China’s GDP. High but not as high as say Germany. It doesn’t seem like a fall in exports would be unmanageable. Not to make a virtue out of a harsh reality but chinas export heavy model wasn’t sustainable anyway.

Re: TSMC plans to halt chip supplies to Huawei in 2 months

#416

Post by PKop »

reissbaker wrote: post #305
nine_zeros wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PPP gives a great measure of total addressable market size in local currency. US nominal GDP is higher only because US dollar is 7x a Chinese yuan. But there absolutely are more humans in China, with enough yuan to buy more chips than the US. Only that they'll get paid in a lesser currency.

> with enough yuan to buy more chips than the US Er, no. By definition a country with higher nominal GDP can afford to import more chips than a country with lower nominal GDP. That's exactly what nominal GDP calculates. This is probably why you're being downvoted into oblivion. It's also why TSMC isn't exporting its chips to Huawei anymore. Also, there's a reason that the yuan is worth 7x less than the USD: it's beca…

For a while, but nations with twin deficits (trade and fiscal) historically saw their currency lose value, which was a natural correcting mechanism to close inordinately large imbalances, which US has.. massively.

Of course what sustains this is $ as global reserve and for most of last few decades need for dollars to buy oil

These things are changing. China's size and demand for commodities pushes oil exporters and commodity exporters more and more to accepting yuan.

US loss of industry on the margins means $ has less use as reserve. Why stock pile dollars and treasuries if you anticipate large devaluation (deficits) in the future and are purchasing more goods from China?

What does US do as a result? Sanction and or invade oil exporters trading for other currencies. Iraq, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Russia.

Nordstream 2 is a big one. Germany and Europe perfectly content to buy cheaper oil from Russia going forward. Much less need for $ though, as a result.

Thus, this overvalued $ (based on balance of trade fundamentals) won't perpetuate as it has previously.

Re: TSMC plans to halt chip supplies to Huawei in 2 months

#417

Post by eunos »

jacquesm wrote: post #67
jlokier wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it will take long to surpass ASML if the state commits to it and decides the ASML patents don't matter any more. There's enough public knowledge about EUV to clone the machines if starting with unlimited financial resources and no legal constraints.

That's so funny. ASML holds the market for a reason, this is not so simple. You could probably do it on a Friday night but the Chinese may take a bit longer than that.

There are (probably) various degree of success. Let's say that some X.Inc in China managed to manufacture EUV machines in 5 years. However, it's 3 time more expensive and only quarter of lifespan compared to ASML. That's still a win since PRC gov can easily subsidize both fabricators to buy them and X. Inc to do more research. Of course it won't be competitive, but that's another goal.

Re: TSMC plans to halt chip supplies to Huawei in 2 months

#418

Post by eunos »

christophilus wrote: post #66

What's to prevent China from re-branding Huawei, or something along those lines? Then, US / UK / Taiwanese companies could say: we're no longer dealing with Huawei. We're dealing with Uawei. It's different? China could do something like that indefinitely, as a workaround, no? Or, China could just have any number of new shell companies order TSMC parts, and then hand them over to Huawei.

Another question is whether the entire IP of HiSilicon is 'poisonous'?

Can, let's say Huawei sell HiSilicon IP to BBK electronic or Xiaomi and again access the TSMC?

Re: TSMC plans to halt chip supplies to Huawei in 2 months

#419

Post by myopenid2 »

greatjack613 wrote: post #232
euix wrote: post #116

The founder of SMIC on the mainland is actually Taiwanese and a former TSMC executive. Loyalties cut across the strait both ways, westerners overemphasis attachment to values and ideology over bloodlines and ancestry. It's true for some but not for others. There are quite a lot of foreign engineers working on the mainland, especially Taiwanese engineers. If you are a industry vet or got some kind of special talent yo…

This piece smells like ccp propaganda. Read the above after considering those muslims who are chained in a ccp re-education center in china. @Dang can you investigate this. I feel like the ccp is directly targeting hacker news to spread misinformation. Very scary.

The ideology does align with mine, so therefore it must be fake news.

Re: TSMC plans to halt chip supplies to Huawei in 2 months

#420

Post by rstuart4133 »

0xy wrote: post #325
_7fvc wrote: post #260

I see this news as a loss for the US. It has to resort to regulations to stop TSMC from doing business with Huawei. When you can't incentivize your ally, that means your opponent's business is still very attractive. Regulations will only cripple your ally. Taiwan may comply on the outside. But inside, they'll cut under-the-table deals with China. They'll find loop holes to skirt regulations. Taiwan seems to be headin…

The US will defend Taiwan by any means necessary, including nuclear options. If they don't, they've already lost to China. Chip superiority is everything. If the US can't manufacture or source modern chips then it's over for them. US leaders and the military know this to be true. Taiwan is not Hong Kong. The US doesn't need Hong Kong. The US needs Taiwan.

> Chip superiority is everything.

The Chinese didn't get to their current position via chip superiority. They got there by being a low cost producer of a whole pile of other things. Clearly chip superiority wasn't everything to them.

In fact also by definition most countries don't have chip superiority. Not the UK (home of ARM), not Japan, not Germany, not Canada, not Australia (who happens to be a medical powerhouse). Yet they all have dynamic successful economies.

It's a big world out there. Being master of one trade doesn't make you the master of them all.

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