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Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

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Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#41

Post by divbzero »

bvaldivielso wrote: post #8
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #4

Economical and performant chip and jet turbine production are two areas where China can't really take any shortcuts. They have to put in a lot of time and resources to rediscover closely guarded secrets that are almost impossible to reverse engineer. They are dumping in the resources, so I'm sure they will eventually get there, but it might be a few decades (in both fields, they can already do performant or economica…

Interesting. What about hiring people from the leading companies? Isn't that how a lot of knowledge transfer happens in all industries? Are non-competes enforceable internationally?

On top of that, doesn’t one of the leading companies have foundries in China already? Presumably that would be a source for poaching talent.

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#42

Post by klipt »

nwiswell wrote: post #20
pixl97 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about doing it the old fashion way and just stealing said information?

At least for semiconductors a lot of the magic is distributed tribal knowledge among engineers and the sophisticated equipment used to fabricate the devices (all major suppliers are in the US, Europe, and Japan). So theft is not really a complete solution, although it can help.

So if there were a war and the existing equipment got bombed, the world would basically be set 10 years behind on computing?

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#43

Post by stickfigure »

r00fus wrote: post #39
tablespoon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you possess this information and plan to move to (or even visit) China, I imagine US immigration will look at you very closely and not simply allow you to leave to go work for Chengdu Aerospace Corporation. I don't think the US border control system works like that. If you're a citizen, you never need an exit visa. IIRC, as long as you have a valid passport, you can exit and enter as you please, but if there's p…

Do you actually understand how this works or are you theorizing? The no-fly-list exists. Security clearances are tracked.

Anyone who has been through civics 101 in the US knows this. Unless there is a warrant out for your arrest, the US government cannot stop a US citizen from leaving the country.

Even if somehow you got on the no-fly list, you can take a boat. Or drive/walk across one of the land borders. Perfectly legally.

Security clearances are a red herring. The folks working in Intel/TSMC/TI/etc fabs don't have or need security clearances. This is private technology.

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#44

Post by nwiswell »

klipt wrote: post #42
nwiswell wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for semiconductors a lot of the magic is distributed tribal knowledge among engineers and the sophisticated equipment used to fabricate the devices (all major suppliers are in the US, Europe, and Japan). So theft is not really a complete solution, although it can help.

So if there were a war and the existing equipment got bombed, the world would basically be set 10 years behind on computing?

> basically be set 10 years behind on computing

That probably overstates the case a little bit since capacity is distributed around the world, but in some sense yes.

It's not particularly hypothetical. If China (PRC) was to invade Taiwan, that would potentially knock out a frightening proportion of the world's leading-edge capacity.

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#46

Post by cromwellian »

Modern semiconductors seems a lot like the F-1 engine on the Saturn V. Even if you had the blueprints for it, you couldn't build it without doing a lot of work to rediscover all of the missing details that were in the minds of the engineers and tradesmen who built it.

Also, (I didn't read the original article), but there's been some suggestion that some of these companies, like HSMC, were really just investor scams. They raised a whole bunch of money, promised a lot, but didn't actually know how to do what they said they did. Kinda like a Chinese Silicon version of Theranos. I think HSMC even had an ASML EUV machine, but never got to use it.

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#47

Post by 0000011111 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #4

Economical and performant chip and jet turbine production are two areas where China can't really take any shortcuts. They have to put in a lot of time and resources to rediscover closely guarded secrets that are almost impossible to reverse engineer. They are dumping in the resources, so I'm sure they will eventually get there, but it might be a few decades (in both fields, they can already do performant or economica…

China launched more rockets to orbit than any other country last year. They make not take short cuts. But they do catch up quickly in terms of development.

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#48

Post by codeulike »

panabee wrote: post #21
chx wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So 50B? That's nowhere near what you need. Last year both TSMC and Intel announced they are spending a hundred billion each on new fabs (TSMC in April, Intel in July) and they have all the R&D already and good relationship with ASML (and both own a few percent of it, too). But the US banned ASML from selling to China so you need to catch up with ASML and Intel/TSMC at the same time. Now, I don't know when ASML starte…

why haven't alternatives emerged to ASML to help drive down the cost of building new fabs? do you know what the cost breakdown is when building fabs?

Because the EUV machines that ASML build are the most complex machines ever built by humans and getting all the bits to work properly takes decades of R+D

e.g. watch this about the light source, its completely bonkers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ge2RcvDlgw

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#49

Post by post_from_work »

bvaldivielso wrote: post #8
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #4

Economical and performant chip and jet turbine production are two areas where China can't really take any shortcuts. They have to put in a lot of time and resources to rediscover closely guarded secrets that are almost impossible to reverse engineer. They are dumping in the resources, so I'm sure they will eventually get there, but it might be a few decades (in both fields, they can already do performant or economica…

Interesting. What about hiring people from the leading companies? Isn't that how a lot of knowledge transfer happens in all industries? Are non-competes enforceable internationally?

On some other forums/blogs that I follow, there are Turkish information operations guys who post about the triumphs of the Turkish defence industry. Their lead guy says that Turkish companies are throwing million-dollar salaries at experienced American engineers with things like aerospace experience. Take that statement with a pound of salt. But I did look at a few Turkish companies that seemed to be hiring foreign expertise, and their domestic arms industry has grown by leaps and bounds in the past decade, despite their broad economic problems.

Re: Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer chips, and failed

#50

Post by post_from_work »

nefitty wrote: post #28
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaders in their field usually do not want to live under a totalitarian communist government.

When the dude from Alibaba got disappeared for a few weeks, I said to myself, "Well, I won't be starting my next trillion dollar business there."

Shit, I won't even go there to study kung fu! A few years back I was considering studying Bajiquan ( https://www.studymartialarts.org/school/an-wushu-internation... ), and even then, back before they started detaining random Western businessmen as spies, I figured being an ex-military officer would probably be an unnecessary risk.
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