As someone long Qualcomm this is excellent news.
Why? Qualcomm is a US company, subject to the same export restrictions.
Huawei is a competitor in the mobile SoC field.
TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions
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Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions
#72As someone long Qualcomm this is excellent news.
Why? Qualcomm is a US company, subject to the same export restrictions.
Qualcomm and Huawei are both "fabless" semiconductor companies, like NVidia or AMD. These companies design chips, but do not own foundries to manufacture them. TSMC is a "pure-play foundry", a company that does not design chips, but only manufactures chips that other companies have designed. TSMC is the largest and most advanced foundry.
Huawei (a Chinese company) and Qualcomm (a US company) both design modems[1]. Huawei and Qualcomm both need TSMC's fabs, or else they will not be able to manufacture their most advanced designs. If Huawei can't buy from TSMC, then new Huawei modems will have to be manufactured with inferior or more expensive alternatives.
With Huawei chips now more expensive or less performant, products designed by Qualcomm will be better in comparison. Presumably, this will cause Qualcomm's stock to rise in value, although it may be a net negative for the worldwide economy.
See also the recent announcement that TSMC reached an agreement with the US government to move some of its production to Arizona [2].
[1] Huawei's Kirin/Balong chips directly compete with Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips: both are currently manufactured on TSMC's 7nm process.
Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Wait a minute... You're pretending like trade is only "fair" if selling happens in both directions. Doesn't that fly directly in the face of what trade means? I am confused by your question. How is this relevant to anti-competitive behavior of the CCP? > You buy something, but you get value in return. That's why it's not called "donation". If the thing you bought is not valuable to you then why did you buy it in th…
Those were genuine questions, not patronizing. I just don't agree with the characterization that things are "unfair". I don't see how you can recognize that buying means getting value in return while still talking about fairness at the same time. The fairness is already embedded in the very transaction! You talk about anti-competitiveness, but isn't that just a matter of perspective and not an absolute moral high gro…
I think I want to explore something related to morality - what is the end game of humans? If the end game is to fallback on tribal instincts and identity, then we are easily equiped to assure mutual destruction. If the end game is to keep inventing bigger, better, faster, cheaper things and climb on the technology ladder enabled by the machinery of competition, then there has to be fairness built into the rulebook. One can't come in an tear pages off that benefit their own and lead demise of the other - all players notice the one who is not playing by the rulebook, not just the immediate opponent in the arena. One need not go too far to find it in the fabric of the human spirit (and even some monkeys), from market economy to PubG servers, people expect fairness and equal opportunity.
Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Chinese semiconductor industry is going to happen no matter what; it is one of their strategic priorities and they have been moving in this direction for a long time. This is about making it harder and inflicting some pain on them.
The effect will be the exact opposite, it will make it harder and will inflict some pain on them in the short term , but in the longer term any internal resistance has just evaporated and they will double down on this.
What is this internal resistance theory in China?
Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions
#75Escalation between the US and China is inevitable. China is fundamentally opposed to everything the US and Democracies around the world stand for politically. Likewise, the US and friends are fundamentally opposed to everything China stands for politically. There is no Universe in which two diametrically opposed juggernauts do not come into conflict. Conflict is simply inevitable when the stakes are this high and the…
Could you please stop taking HN threads further into ideological and nationalistic flamewar? You've been doing it a lot, unfortunately, and it's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It's unfortunate that there are flamewars here but this is big news and it has dropped off the front page now. It would be sad if HN was no longer a place where relevant news like this could be discussed, just because it relates to China.
Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
The effect will be the exact opposite, it will make it harder and will inflict some pain on them in the short term , but in the longer term any internal resistance has just evaporated and they will double down on this.
What is this internal resistance theory in China?
China has finite resources to throw at this problem and their track record so far is less than stellar. There is a lot of concern that pursuing this now is wasting resources better put to use elsewhere. But now the nationalists will be able to point to this and say 'see, we were right all along, now we need to make up for lost time' and then they'll demand even more resources.
Which is interesting because it probably (not 100% sure about that) wasn't a resource issue to begin with (see below), the amount of money thrown at this so far has resulted in precious little in terms of concrete returns.
China is still stuck at 28 nm and a rough 6% or so of global capacity, technologically that's well over a decade behind TSMC, Samsung and GF, they also almost exclusively sell into their own market.
Whether this will be the push they needed to start moving remains to be seen but it will certainly add to the total weight of evidence that independence from US controlled manufacturing is a strategic goal.
It may also cause them to become more serious about Taiwan being a 'part of China' which may result in the longer term in the US shooting it's own foot. That would be a major game changer, TSMC is 50% of the global chip production.
From what I know about this the major roadblock from a tech perspective is the gear required to set up the fabs, specifically EUVL equipment, which is not the kind of equipment you make from scratch without having seen the intermediate stages. To what extent more money will be able to accelerate this is the big question.
Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't Qualcomm lose all future revenue coming from Huawei in this scenario? Please explain.
Huawei is one of their largest competitors in terms of 5G chipsets. Restrictions on Huawei would also likely help US companies like Apple, so this move would be a net positive.
and for those that ask why didn't Qualcomm sue Huawei to oblivion, just like they did to Apple in US and China?
Qualcomm did. China's antitrust body proceeded to fine them for 1B and forced them to offer reasonable IP licencing deal to local tech companies.
Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those were genuine questions, not patronizing. I just don't agree with the characterization that things are "unfair". I don't see how you can recognize that buying means getting value in return while still talking about fairness at the same time. The fairness is already embedded in the very transaction! You talk about anti-competitiveness, but isn't that just a matter of perspective and not an absolute moral high gro…
I think I want to explore something related to morality - what is the end game of humans? If the end game is to fallback on tribal instincts and identity, then we are easily equiped to assure mutual destruction. If the end game is to keep inventing bigger, better, faster, cheaper things and climb on the technology ladder enabled by the machinery of competition, then there has to be fairness built into the rulebook. O…
I agree with the abstract idea of fairness, having rules, etc. But the devil lies in the implementation. A dogmatic free trade order mainly benefits the establishment: the western powers. If China adopts free trade principles in a dogmatic manner then they will be tremendously hurt by it. And it's not like the US plays very fair either: the US outright rejects a lot of international rules. For example there is a US law that declares they will invade the Netherlands if a US person is ever judged by the International Court of Justice. http://www.diplomatmagazine.eu/2019/02/09/william-pace-the-h...
Having ideals is a fine thing but we need to stay realistic. Is it at all possible to create rules that benefit everybody, given that countries differ in development status, culture, values, etc? I have no idea. We can try, we should try, but don't get too surprised if things fall apart sometimes, and when things fall apart it's unhelpful to point fingers.
Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions
#79To preface, firstly - I am a supporter of free global trade and greater collaboration between countries to maximize the benefit of each other. The problem starts when there is a massive asymmetry in the trade. China has completely blocked US services from Google to Uber, and gladly accepts manufacturing investment - Tesla Shanghai factory, Intel's Chengdu factory, etc. because the CCP knows that they will gain tremen…
Trade is always beneficial to both sides. I find it quite silly for people who say they support free trade but then claim this kind of bs. If the trade isn't beneficial, then they simply won't trade. And if is then they will receive a benefit from the trade. But trade is decisions by individuals, and shouldn't be up to donald tramp and his tramp crew. What your describing is asymmetry between countries in trade. The Hecksher Ohlin model describes the relationship quite well and the relationship is natural. For the same reason the whole complaing about how X country is subsidising their Y products and ruining our country, is just rich corporate bs. It's focused on business owners and not consumers. Why should I pay for a product when I know my marginal utility/marginal cost is higher with the other product? So I can put more money into some rich asshole's ass pocket? While you might be rich enough to sit complain about things being too cheap, some of us have bills to pay. And I see no reason to pay more so you can make money off the rest of us.
Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions
#80Anyone else feels this is shortsighted? Estimates are that China is 10 years away to be able to build chips domestically that can compete with TSMC. Mostly because a lot of the precision chip making technologies are hard to make and are only made by a few manufactures and their exports are controlled. However, I feel like our new competitive mindset is using the wall to block others. To wall off China to wall off imm…
Just a note on the word "nationalist" re: Taiwan. It's confusing to most, but in Taiwan, "nationalist" is the pro-China faction, due to historical association of that term with the KMT.
"Green," pro-independence, or "TI" (Taiwan Independence) would be the less confusing term for the side you think might lose with this development.
The TI side has been winning bigly in the past year thanks to Xi Jinping and Carrie Lam's treatment of Hong Kong, and to China's and WHO's lack of transparency in the early days of COVID-19.