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TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

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Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#121

Post by xxpor »

amelius wrote: post #65
ujkhsjkdhf234 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to deliberately create silos in order to secure a project. We've had people working on top secret projects and while people may not have known the specifics the company was kept up to date on the progress and outcomes of the project. We brought people in from other teams after an extra vetting process and additional NDA specific to that project.

With industrial espionage, NDAs aren't going to cut it ...

For the vast vast majority of companies, their success comes down to culture and execution rather than "the tech secret". You can't really steal that.

I will grant you, the specific case of TSMC is definitely in the rarer case where there are true tech secrets.

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#122

Post by LarMachinarum »

ethbr1 wrote: post #116
ryanjshaw wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This abuse of Excel might be in the running for a new form of esports.

It's always worth remembering there's exactly one reason Excel is abused -- IT isn't giving "non-developers" access to tools they need to automate their work.

while I don't doubt that such situations also exist, that wasn't the reason for any of the many "Excel abusers" I've encountered in different positions. Quite to the contrary, these people all had access to the appropriate tools, but their whole thinking was totally formatted and fixated on Excel as their go-to tool for everything:

be it things better done with a database, a word processor, a diagramming program, a label generator, a Form editor, a markup language, a web page, anything: they had all the tools at their disposal but no, no, they felt the odd compulsive need to do it with only Excel instead…

…often leading to problems down the line when the limitations of Excel for the use case (for which it wasn't made) would show more and more but they wasted already so much time and (needless) effort doing it in Excel that they would be even more reluctant to the possibility of switching to any more appropriate tool for the task.

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#123

Post by monkeyelite »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #83
dmbche wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harder to pretend when speaking with colleagues that are the real deal. Also very likely to "step out of line" accidentally over time as lot of time is spent with colleagues. It's not hard to pretend to be anything for 5 minutes to someone who doesn't know anything about what you're doing.

Naively, I was assuming TSMC would still operate like TSMC, not the Taliban, and that they'd focus on doing their work, not religious performance, but I guess anything is possible! Suggesting TSMC start operating like the Taliban to protect their trade secrets seems like an obviously bad idea, though. But we don't live in a vacuum, so I guess it's all just opinion pieces.

Please don’t be facetious

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#124

Post by throw0101c »

tjpnz wrote: post #23
ants_everywhere wrote: post #6

Industrial espionage has to be totally insane to defend against these days.

Just knowing how the thing is built doesn't seem to be enough. Comac still sources its jet engines from Pratt and Whitney for instance, despite many years of trying no local manufacturer has been able to build them to the same spec.

> Just knowing how the thing is built doesn't seem to be enough.

See perhaps:

> Tacit knowledge or implicit knowledge is knowledge that is difficult to extract or articulate—as opposed to conceptualized, formalized, codified, or explicit knowledge—and is therefore more difficult to convey to others through verbalization or writing. Examples of this include individual wisdom, experience, insight, motor skill, and intuition.[1] An example of "explicit" information that can be recorded, conveyed, and understood by the recipient is the knowledge that London is in the United Kingdom. Speaking a language, riding a bicycle, kneading dough, playing an instrument, or designing and operating sophisticated machinery, on the other hand, all require a variety of knowledge that is difficult or impossible to transfer to other people and is not always known "explicitly," even by skilled practitioners.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#125

Post by motorest »

baggachipz wrote: post #27
tjpnz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just knowing how the thing is built doesn't seem to be enough. Comac still sources its jet engines from Pratt and Whitney for instance, despite many years of trying no local manufacturer has been able to build them to the same spec.

Or for analogy, following a recipe doesn't make you a good cook.

> Or for analogy, following a recipe doesn't make you a good cook.

For an analogy, no one cares if you're a good cook if you're able to make a passable burger. Most of the demand is not for the best burger money can buy, the just want a burger.

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#127

Post by tonyhart7 »

protimewaster wrote: post #95
tonyhart7 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

IBM has been publicly working toward 2nm since at least 2021, though, so it doesn't seem like it's coming from nowhere. Unless this is a completely different 2nm development, here's a presser about it from 2021, titled "Introducing the world's first 2 nm node chip" ( https://research.ibm.com/blog/2-nm-chip )

[flagged]

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#128

Post by trynumber9 »

tonyhart7 wrote: post #38
AnonMO wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

make no sense since Rapidus 2nm process is from IBM.

idk which shocking, Japanese company try to steal TSMC or IBM have 2nm process out of nowhere

IBM has kept researching in Albany. They license manufacturing technology to other parties even if they gave up trying to build their own fabrication facilities a decade ago.

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#129

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

How big are all of the design files for a modern chip? 10MB? 100gig? Billions of transistors, but surely a lot of compressible redundancy.

Not that I think you can just plug in a thumb drive and download as you please, but just a sense of scale on how much data describes the design.

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#130

Post by FredPret »

baggachipz wrote: post #72
reaperducer wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or for analogy, following a recipe doesn't make you a good cook. Following a recipe can you close enough for thousands of Door Dash customers to put the original restaurant out of business.

I feel like you're reading too deeply into my shallow analogy.

I'm not sure - what if China can flood the world with 80%-as-good-as-the-real-thing knockoffs at half the price and put everyone else out of business?
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