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Nah, this is the worst possible outcome for ZTE. They are going to be severely crippled in the international market without being able to use SoCs from Qualcomm
by sigmar 9y ago
Nah, this is the worst possible outcome for ZTE. They are going to be severely crippled in the international market without being able to use SoCs from Qualcomm (particularly since they haven't invested in creating their own chips like Huawei and Samsung have)
- ksk 9y ago>(particularly since they haven't invested in creating their own chips like Huawei and Samsung have) They can't really 'invest' in creating their own chips. Currently, all the countries that have semiconductor technology have put them on their export control and won't hand it over to china at any cost. IIRC China overbid for the tech (Was it Micron?) and the government blocked them.
- inferiorhuman 9y agoIsn't Huawei Chinese though?
- ksk 9y agohttps://www.datenna.com/editorial/china-imports-more-integrated-circuits-than-crude-oil/ https://www.datenna.com/editorial/china-imports-more-integra...
- inferiorhuman 9y agoThe best I could come up with is that Huawei (PRC) uses TSMC (RoC) for production, which is to say China could easily invest in domestic production.
- balls187 9y agoSoC aren't being manufactured in China? Aren't Chinese companies also engaging in rampant Cyber theft of IP?
- ksk 9y agoThey are, but like I mentioned in my other comment, their current tech (AFAIK) was cutting edge (Intel) in the year 2000. They're still quite behind. The government is investing gobs of cash to reduce that gap. All the governments with cutting edge semiconductor tech (US/Japan/EU/Korea) are doing anything they can to prevent China from getting it. >Aren't Chinese companies also engaging in rampant Cyber theft of IP? I suppose the Chinese don't consider themselves subject to US laws. Not sure if they've signed any treaties..
- balls187 9y agoLess about the legality of it all, and more a question as to why they are so far behind. If Chinese companies are stealing IP, how come their Semiconductor tech lags so much? I'll also temper my comment by saying the West (US in particular) also engages in same behavior, but with less direct benefit.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bsder 9y ago> If Chinese companies are stealing IP, how come their Semiconductor tech lags so much? Shit's hard, yo. :) Because you can give someone your entire IP portfolio, and they still don't have the institutional knowledge to put it all together. Digital Equipment Corporation literally had almost 100 Korean engineers on site in Boston in an attempt to teach Samsung how to make Alpha microprocessors. They were only marginally successful, and both parties wanted each other to succeed. Apple, for example, only knows how to build chips because they bought SiByte who were a bunch of ex-Digital Equipment Corporation microprocessor designers--who learned from people who had something like 3 decades of institutional knowledge upon which to draw. There aren't that many chip designers in the world. And a lot of them got out because making and selling chips is such a horrifically bad business (long timelines, high capital cost, high risk).
- 9y ago
- skybrian 9y agoIt seems unlikely that all these countries would refuse to make chips for ZTE, though?
- jdietrich 9y agoHuawei's Kirin SoCs are developed through their HiSilicon subsidiary and are highly competitive with flagship SoCs from Qualcomm and Samsung. MediaTek are a major player in the budget and mid-range smartphone segments. China lacks mainland fabrication capacity, but Chinese fabless IC companies have very good working relationships with TSMC. Tsinghua Unigroup's bids to buy Micron failed, but they're building a $30bn 3D NAND fab which is due to go online this year. The Chinese government are very serious about building up modern fab capacity. ARM are British, so there's nothing stopping ZTE from licensing the technology they need to develop a flagship SoC. TSMC will happily fab it for them on a modern process node. Huawei have done it, ZTE are undoubtedly doing feasibility studies as we speak and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Xiaomi and Oppo are thinking about it. In the long term, this sanction could massively backfire by pushing Chinese manufacturers to reduce their dependence on American suppliers.
- dublinben 9y agoDoesn't MediaTek provide complete SoC alternatives to everything that Qualcomm offers? It seems like all the low-end Chinese Android brands are already using MediaTek chips.
- sigmar 9y agoThat's true. But if ZTE puts MediaTek in all their phones, they will become known as a low-end phone manufacturer with poor performance, selective lte band support, and non-existent updates.
- bitL 9y agoThat could change. They can invest into kernel engineers as well.
- jdietrich 9y agoMediaTek have some highly competitive entry-level and mid-range SoC options, but their high-end offerings are much weaker. Huawei-owned HiSilicon do have some very good high-end SoCs. It's plausible that ZTE could partner with a Chinese semi company to produce a competitive high-end SoC.
- jdietrich 9y agoI'm not so sure. ZTE are quite weak internationally and don't ship a significant number of high-end devices. America is the primary market for ZTE thanks to long-running carrier partnerships. Losing US-made components will be painful for ZTE, but it's survivable. They can re-spin existing designs around MediaTek SoCs and keep most of their existing market share. Losing the US consumer market would have been a massive blow, undoing years of work that other Chinese smartphone manufacturers have failed to replicate. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bensin/2017/10/23/how-zte-did-what-other-chinese-phone-companies-couldnt-enter-the-u-s-and-japanese-market/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bensin/2017/10/23/how-zte-did-w...
- jacquesm 9y agoExactly. That would have at least achieved the stated goal, if this doesn't kill ZTE it will only make them stronger.
- cryptonector 9y agoLosing the US consumer market is presumably still on the table. "Here's one punishment. Do you want more?"