TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions • Hacker News Board

Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions

#81

Post by billfruit » Mon, May 18, 2020, 8:45 AM UTC

modeless wrote: post #75

dang wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I doubt any reasonably productive thread will happen with any China-related thread, as they simply seems to be hijacked by people with a very US centric hawkish mentality.

Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions

#82

Post by elp » Mon, May 18, 2020, 8:59 AM UTC

salimmadjd wrote: post #42

Anyone 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…

I think this sends a really strong message to the rest of the world to try avoid buying US technology because they might get locked into arbitrary rules sometime in the future.

There was an article in The Economist a few month back (can't find the link right now) that suggested that China might secretly like Donald Trump and accept the short term pain of his presidency because of the long term gain of the wedge he is driving between the USA and the rest of the world.

Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions

#83

Post by throwaway2048 » Mon, May 18, 2020, 9:16 AM UTC

harpratap wrote: post #28

throwaway2048 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China becoming more democratic has been a pipe dream getting sold by businesses making money off the fantasy for 3 decades and running. The opposite is currently happening.

People said the same thing about free markets in Soviet Union. Yet here we are with entrepreneurs and stock markets in Communist China.

Entrepreneurs and stock markets have nothing to do with democracy, its a conceit anyone ever thought they did.

Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions

#84

Post by _ph_ » Mon, May 18, 2020, 9:58 AM UTC

dannyw wrote: post #27

jacquesm wrote: post #17

And thus enables the Chinese semiconductor industry.

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.

This is most of all forcing a build-up of Chinese semiconductor industry independent of the USA. So not using any USA IP, software or anything. It forces China to build anything they need vs. buying it abroad.

Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions

#85

Post by _ph_ » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:04 AM UTC

This is a disaster and can get ugly very quickly. Whatever the concerns of the USA against Huawei are, trying to destroy the company by pressuring international companies in severing all ties is an extremely hostile movement.

Next step, as China has already hinted towards, is actions in China against Apple. And we don't know how further the escalation will go. So far, any ambition of China towards Taiwan has been limited by the fact that China depends quite on Taiwanese fabs. Remove that, and accidents might happen... which would harm the whole world.

Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions

#86

Post by enitihas » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:08 AM UTC

summerlight wrote: post #62

marticode wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is saying that Google could have kept operating in China if they had agreed to follow local (but Orwellian) regulations.

No, Google pulled its business from China because of massive state-level hacking attempts, not because of fighting for freedom or doing the right thing or whatever that sounds cool. Or do you think fighting against millions of state-backed hackers is a part of following local regulation?

Google didn't pull it's business from the USA after PRISM, so I guess strengthening their networks against state-backed hackers is already part and parcel of their business.

Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions

#87

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:14 AM UTC

trixie_ wrote: post #69

dannyw wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The threat of nuclear war goes both ways: the impact of nuclear on discouraging the defence of Taiwan is equally applicable on discouraging the invasion of Taiwan.

No one is having a nuclear war over Taiwan. It's important, but not that important. If China invaded Taiwan, the US would not defend it. Super powers don't go to war. They have wars through proxy countries. If super powers did go to war, it would be nuclear war, and it would be bad.

[deleted]

Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions

#88

Post by someperson » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:21 AM UTC

_ph_ wrote: post #85

This is a disaster and can get ugly very quickly. Whatever the concerns of the USA against Huawei are, trying to destroy the company by pressuring international companies in severing all ties is an extremely hostile movement. Next step, as China has already hinted towards, is actions in China against Apple. And we don't know how further the escalation will go. So far, any ambition of China towards Taiwan has been lim…

This won't kill Huawei at all, and instead of manufacturing chips with TSMC, won't they'll just switch their HiSilicon Kirin chip manufacturing to SMICs' 14nm process? I know it's no longer useful to compare process node sizes between companies anymore, but for what it's worth Intel is still stuck on 14nm and they're still considered by many a competitive chip-making titan.

Also remember when United States pulled a similar stunt on ZTE a few years ago (banning us of American parts), only to reach an agreement and walk back the decision?

Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions

#89

Post by foepys » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:22 AM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #54

fermienrico wrote: post #30

To 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…

> China has completely blocked US services from Google to Uber Western social media platform are welcome to participate in China if they follow local laws - in this case onerous censorship requirements, which every domestic company comply to. That's what project Dragonfly was for, but internal Google politics killed it. Bing still operates fine in China while Google and Facebook still makes billions off Chinese adsal…

Didn't China require any foreign company to be controlled by Chinese to get access to the Chinese market?

I heard that they relaxed those restrictions a bit to appease the WTO but in practice are often still denying basic permits for foreign companies until they can show to have a ≥51% Chinese share.

Re: TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions

#90

Post by rapsey » Mon, May 18, 2020, 10:23 AM UTC

salimmadjd wrote: post #42

Anyone 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…

> Estimates are that China is 10 years away to be able to build chips domestically that can compete with TSMC.

10 years away from making todays chips? That means they are extremely far off.

10 years away from competing with what TSMC is putting out in 10 years? That would mean their pace of development would be much faster. Putting any kind of accurate prediction on that is absurd.