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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

#141

Post by wyre »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #115
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.

The product I oversee at my job is something that can only be built by people who are intimately aware of the process and have a strong understanding of the underlying engineering. We could hand the full project file to a competitor and they almost certainly would not be able to build functional units. The failure points are fractal, so you need a strong intuition about what part you are installing, what qualities an…

What product is it?

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

#142

Post by peterfirefly »

vFunct wrote: post #47
sneak wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is insanely valuable, both commercially and strategically. If it weren’t that hard to replicate, several countries (and Bezos/Blue Origin) would have replicated it by now. I think you vastly underestimate how difficult rocketry is. There’s a reason “rocket science” is colloquially a metaphor for an extremely difficult and technical task.

SpaceX itself replicated the DC-X from the 90's. The reason the DC-X was cancelled was because of the economics. Reusable rockets are a solved problem, with only the economics of it a barrier (see Space Shuttle). SpaceX has to rely on their own investor funding for Starlink to remain a viable entity.

The DC-X was stupid, dumb, insane, bunkers, and a waste of money and not replicable.

"sure, let's put four RL-10 hydrogen engines on it! They are expensive and the worst possible for the low-altitude flights we are going to do so some sucker will believe we can do multi-stage reusable flights to orbit".

"sure, we don't actually need to go to orbit anyway. That was always a dumb idea. Who said we ever wanted to do that? No, suborbital is really useful, we promise. And we are going to do it with a single stage (using hydrogen) cuz we are so smart and the future and everything!"

"sure, let's build a specialized hydrogen tank in a stupid shape."

"sure, let's give the whole single-stage low-altitude rocket a k00l shape that makes it more expensive."

"People knowing it can't be done shouldn't interrupt people doing it wrong."

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

#143

Post by indoordin0saur »

bilbo0s wrote: post #71
chilmers wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, this is admittedly a little tinfoil, but I wouldn't be surprised if Musk is happy for some degree of espionage to happen. If it looked like there was a possibility of China getting this capability first, it would light a fire under the US government to give financial and regulatory assistance to the Starship program.

Musk does seem to think in terms of how much money he can get from the government for his companies. But to be fair, government subsidies are a successful strategy for entrepreneurs who want to make a lot of money. Maybe they shouldn't be? And I think honest people can have that debate. But you can't really argue against the effectiveness of government subsidy as a path to prosperity for the guy getting the money.

Despite his faults he does seem to care about the actual lofty mission statements of his companies more than just straight profit. Otherwise, you wouldn't see bizarre things like him directing Tesla to open source all their patents.

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

#144

Post by indoordin0saur »

pc86 wrote: post #48
de6u99er wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think what SpaceX is doing is that hard to replicate. There's already competitors launching smaller payloads for smaller costs per weight. Just a matter of time until they creep into SpaceX's market, while SpaceX tries to build a starship inspired by the Futurama rocket.

This comment has big "I could build a better SpaceX I just don't want to" vibes.

If only my dad had an emerald mine then I'd be the billionaire rocket scientist CEO

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

#145

Post by raverbashing »

ryanjshaw wrote: post #88
sgarland wrote: post #32

Right before I left Samsung Austin Semiconductor (Samsung’s fab in the U.S.), in 2019, they were phasing out local share drives in favor of a self-hosted cloud that Samsung created. The supposed reason was better security, though it’s unclear to me why they couldn’t globally apply whatever rules they wanted to enforce to all office locations, instead of forcing everyone to use a remote endpoint. The throughput was ab…

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

Maybe we need an IOCCC or Demoscene for Excel

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

#146

Post by kergonath »

Cyph0n wrote: post #99
prussian wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget GE Aerospace. It gets a bit weirder too since you have joint ventures like CFM and Engine Alliance.

Good point. Isn’t there also Safran?

Yes. Their engines are mostly for military applications, tough, so they are less well known of the general public. Other than that, they are half of CFM International, but again they are not very visible.

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

#147

Post by rangestransform »

93po wrote: post #67
duxup wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me companies ... don't care out side some easy to do basic things. But when push comes to shove if manufacturing is cheaper in a country where lots of folks want to steal your things. -shrug- Short term profits win.

am i crazy for not caring if a company in a foreign country obtains trade secrets and manufactures the same thing? like we're all humans and we all want access to whatever it is they're building, it seems like more people building the thing is a good thing. if that impacts Samsung's profits, why do I care? its not like corporations give a shit about me

I work at a tech company and I’d rather have other countries pay my company to do it, rather than do it themselves with less-than-US salaries

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

#148

Post by tracker1 »

LarMachinarum wrote: post #122
ethbr1 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

The VBA hammer is real... it can force any screw, nail, staple into any hole you desire.

Until the web version takes over, and you can no longer connect to anything real.

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

#149

Post by tracker1 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #115
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.

The product I oversee at my job is something that can only be built by people who are intimately aware of the process and have a strong understanding of the underlying engineering. We could hand the full project file to a competitor and they almost certainly would not be able to build functional units. The failure points are fractal, so you need a strong intuition about what part you are installing, what qualities an…

That's not a high bar... Boeing can't seem to reliably manufacture their own designs.
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