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China does have invested a large amount of money in semiconductor businesses over the years, of which 47B is just another. It makes some progress, such as the s

China does have invested a large amount of money in semiconductor businesses over the years, of which 47B is just another. It makes some progress, such as the self-made SW26010 processors in Sunway TaihuLight, the current top one supercomputer in the world. But progress is hard for reasons other than money: * Late comers to the semiconductor industry can barely follow the trends, let alone lead. But if one cannot lead, it cannot survive in a free market. No one is going to buy a chip 3~5 years behind the latest technology when he/she has better choices. * Compatibility issues. China cannot grow its chip with x86 instruction set, at least not the latest one, for patent issues. That further reduces the possibility of commercial success of its own chips. * Semiconductor industry is now past its prime, the profit and salaries lower than the nascent Internet companies. Even in the US, plenty of EE students are jumping ship. In China, EE talents are doubly drained, by both American semiconductor industry, and by the local software industry. * The Wassenaar Arrangement bans the export of many high end equipments necessary for chip making to China. While all the other countries/regions can specialize in one part of the semiconductor industry, China has to do all of them by itself, since it has no external help. * The world politics dictate that Chinese firms are never going to buy ARM. They have the cash and the willingness, but western countries simply won't approve such buyout.

dis-sys 8y ago
> The Wassenaar Arrangement bans the export of many high end equipments necessary for chip making to China. While all the other countries/regions can specialize in one part of the semiconductor industry, China has to do all of them by itself, since it has no external help. Forcing your enemy to invest heavily in such key sectors is pretty stupid. Eventually, one way or another, Chinese will master the state-of-the-art. A few good examples here - LCD industry, weapons. It also worth pointing out that the existence of the Wassenaar Arrangement relies solely on the fact that the US is the biggest economic and military power in the world. Not sure how long the US can continue to maintain it.
- npunt 8y ago
  Not sure its a guarantee that China will master the state-of-the-art of every important sector. China is aging at a very fast pace [1] as their workers are getting older and not being replaced (the tornado chart is pretty stark). This is going to slow the economy considerably. Given other more developed countries have a technology advantage that they're not sharing and they do not face a demographic crunch, its possible China will find themselves perpetually behind in many areas. [1] https://chinapower.csis.org/aging-problem/ https://chinapower.csis.org/aging-problem/
  - baybal2 8y ago
    >Not sure its a guarantee that China will master the state-of-the-art of every important sector. No, they don't need to to begin with. They are smart enough to not to parrot late USSR. Instead, it is seems more evident with each day that they use counterstrategy - sealing West's advancements in what will be the stem of state-of-the-art tech tomorrow, for cheap, instead of fighting for already substantial, but heading for decline things-that-matter markets.
    - netheril96 8y ago
      > Instead, it is seems more evident with each day that they use counterstrategy - sealing West's advancements in what will be the stem of state-of-the-art tech tomorrow, for cheap, instead of fighting for already substantial, but heading for decline things-that-matter markets. That used to be a working strategy. But now that ZTE was sanctioned by the US and almost crumbled overnight, it is obvious that the United States is capable and willing to throttle China on these "already substantial, but heading for decline things-that-matter markets". So China has no choice but to master the state-of-the-art of every important sector.
      - dis-sys 8y ago
        > it is obvious that the United States is capable and willing to throttle China on these "already substantial, but heading for decline things-that-matter markets" that is not very smart. the ZTE drama is a wake up call for Chinese, the message is loud and clear - US products are not reliable in term of its supply, it can be cut at any time for some stupid political reasons ordered by a moronic US president like Trump. if you look at the whole story, it is push the lower limit of the business IQ - - forcing your competitor to invest in high profit sectors - telling your customers to rely on less American products by convincing them that the supply won't be reliable US deserves a better president.
- foodislove 8y ago
  Or they throw money into sectors that they can't win thereby depleting resources away from areas they can. It can seem the Chinese are advancing in every field, but their unfavorable demographics and inability to attract overseas talent will eventually catch up.
- SkyMarshal 8y ago
  >Forcing your enemy to invest heavily in such key sectors is pretty stupid. Generally this makes sense, but not in China’s case where they require all foreign ventures to team with a Chinese company who then steals the foreign partner’s IP. No way a Western semiconductor company could set up a fab in China without creating a competitor 5-10yrs later using their own IP against them. Thus the Wassenaar Arrangement makes sense, it prevents any Western semiconductor company from gaining a short term advantage over its competitors by leveraging Chinese cost efficiencies, incentivizing all of them to self-destructively follow suit.
  - netheril96 8y ago
    The Wassenaar Arrangement bans the export of products, not the joint ventures, although I guess the latter are implicitly not allowed. It would be safe for Western companies to sell made products to China if not for the political reasons, since China could not copy the product itself.
  - sangnoir 8y ago
    > Generally this makes sense, but not in China’s case where they require all foreign ventures to team with a Chinese company who then steals the foreign partner’s IP China is also capable of figuring things out from first principles, or espionage from non-partners. An example of this was the decision by the US to exclude China from the ISS - they built a couple on their own (no partners) and will be there after the ISS de-orbits or privatizes.
- Slansitartop 8y ago
  > Forcing your enemy to invest heavily in such key sectors is pretty stupid. Eventually, one way or another, Chinese will master the state-of-the-art. A few good examples here - LCD industry, weapons. Not if your enemy has a habit of reverse engineering and copying everything they buy. I recall that China was has a competition for foreign companies to sell them attack helicopters. They had trials and evaluations, and settled on a South African one. You'd assume they made a big order, right? Wrong. They placed an order for a single copy, which the South African company wisely declined. I can't seem to find a source for the above story, but I think I read it in Wired maybe 5-10 years ago.
sanxiyn 8y ago
I am rooting for RISC-V so that China can compete on equal footing without these x86 and ARM ISA nonsense.
- fungi 8y ago
  Also building their own ISA http://en.c-sky.com/ http://en.c-sky.com/ and working to get support upstreamed https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/3/18/226 https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/3/18/226
Hasz 8y ago
A couple of counterpoints and expansions. kinda of true, assuming you want to be more than a fabless company. But spinning up a fab 1 gen behind can be profitable, especially if it means higher yields (and thus lower costs). true * Still lots of money to be made at the forefront, i.e new chemistry, new lithography, better process control, etc. Lots of money in layout and software. Pretty decent money in RF work. China has proved itself more than capable of replicating anything you put out there -- all it takes is some plans and a few key engineers, plenty of whom are Chinese nationals. I agree.
- deepnotderp 8y ago
  Agreed, 28nm and 16nm FF are looking to be the sweet spot nodes for a decent amount of time.
onetimemanytime 8y ago
>>Semiconductor industry is now past its prime, the profit and salaries lower than the nascent Internet companies. Past its prime in what sense? We'll need them for the foreseeable future. Salaries and all can be fixed virtually overnight, with funding...like this $47 Billion.
jk2323 8y ago
They already have the MIPS based Loongson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson#Loongson_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson#Loongson_3 Out of curiosity I tried to buy the Loongson 3 one year ago on Taobao (Chinese ebay/Amazon). It was basically impossible to buy except for underpowered old versions. As far as I know the company has been called a scam by some Chinese (just sucking gov incentives etc.) If you are interested, not very powerful MIPS boards are available: https://creatordev.io/ci20.html https://creatordev.io/ci20.html I guess the company "imagination" is for sale too. There were some issues last year.
dogma1138 8y ago
China got x86 via a joint venture with AMD, there is also VIA.
- rasz 8y ago
  and Intel was forced to give away Atom to Spreadtrum
jeffreyrogers 8y ago
What are the patent issues? Intel probably doesn't have patents in China, so a Chinese company could make its own x86 chips for use in China.
- netheril96 8y ago
  China recognizes US patents. I believe that is one of the promises made when joining the WTO. Of course, China could decide one day not to honor these patents, but that would fuel Trump's narrative and escalate this trade war into even greater levels. China does not want that, not yet.
  - jeffreyrogers 8y ago
    I don't think that means what you think it means. US patents only cover the manufacture, sale, and use of the patented thing in the US. You would have to get a separate patent in China, Europe, or any other jurisdiction to prevent someone from legally making use of your invention. Similarly, in the US you can make something that was patented in China as long as it isn't also patented in the US.

dis-sys 8y ago

> The Wassenaar Arrangement bans the export of many high end equipments necessary for chip making to China. While all the other countries/regions can specialize in one part of the semiconductor industry, China has to do all of them by itself, since it has no external help. Forcing your enemy to invest heavily in such key sectors is pretty stupid. Eventually, one way or another, Chinese will master the state-of-the-art. A few good examples here - LCD industry, weapons. It also worth pointing out that the existence of the Wassenaar Arrangement relies solely on the fact that the US is the biggest economic and military power in the world. Not sure how long the US can continue to maintain it.

npunt 8y ago
Not sure its a guarantee that China will master the state-of-the-art of every important sector. China is aging at a very fast pace [1] as their workers are getting older and not being replaced (the tornado chart is pretty stark). This is going to slow the economy considerably. Given other more developed countries have a technology advantage that they're not sharing and they do not face a demographic crunch, its possible China will find themselves perpetually behind in many areas. [1] https://chinapower.csis.org/aging-problem/ https://chinapower.csis.org/aging-problem/
- baybal2 8y ago
  >Not sure its a guarantee that China will master the state-of-the-art of every important sector. No, they don't need to to begin with. They are smart enough to not to parrot late USSR. Instead, it is seems more evident with each day that they use counterstrategy - sealing West's advancements in what will be the stem of state-of-the-art tech tomorrow, for cheap, instead of fighting for already substantial, but heading for decline things-that-matter markets.
  - netheril96 8y ago
    > Instead, it is seems more evident with each day that they use counterstrategy - sealing West's advancements in what will be the stem of state-of-the-art tech tomorrow, for cheap, instead of fighting for already substantial, but heading for decline things-that-matter markets. That used to be a working strategy. But now that ZTE was sanctioned by the US and almost crumbled overnight, it is obvious that the United States is capable and willing to throttle China on these "already substantial, but heading for decline things-that-matter markets". So China has no choice but to master the state-of-the-art of every important sector.
    - dis-sys 8y ago
      > it is obvious that the United States is capable and willing to throttle China on these "already substantial, but heading for decline things-that-matter markets" that is not very smart. the ZTE drama is a wake up call for Chinese, the message is loud and clear - US products are not reliable in term of its supply, it can be cut at any time for some stupid political reasons ordered by a moronic US president like Trump. if you look at the whole story, it is push the lower limit of the business IQ - - forcing your competitor to invest in high profit sectors - telling your customers to rely on less American products by convincing them that the supply won't be reliable US deserves a better president.
foodislove 8y ago
Or they throw money into sectors that they can't win thereby depleting resources away from areas they can. It can seem the Chinese are advancing in every field, but their unfavorable demographics and inability to attract overseas talent will eventually catch up.
SkyMarshal 8y ago
>Forcing your enemy to invest heavily in such key sectors is pretty stupid. Generally this makes sense, but not in China’s case where they require all foreign ventures to team with a Chinese company who then steals the foreign partner’s IP. No way a Western semiconductor company could set up a fab in China without creating a competitor 5-10yrs later using their own IP against them. Thus the Wassenaar Arrangement makes sense, it prevents any Western semiconductor company from gaining a short term advantage over its competitors by leveraging Chinese cost efficiencies, incentivizing all of them to self-destructively follow suit.
- netheril96 8y ago
  The Wassenaar Arrangement bans the export of products, not the joint ventures, although I guess the latter are implicitly not allowed. It would be safe for Western companies to sell made products to China if not for the political reasons, since China could not copy the product itself.
- sangnoir 8y ago
  > Generally this makes sense, but not in China’s case where they require all foreign ventures to team with a Chinese company who then steals the foreign partner’s IP China is also capable of figuring things out from first principles, or espionage from non-partners. An example of this was the decision by the US to exclude China from the ISS - they built a couple on their own (no partners) and will be there after the ISS de-orbits or privatizes.
Slansitartop 8y ago
> Forcing your enemy to invest heavily in such key sectors is pretty stupid. Eventually, one way or another, Chinese will master the state-of-the-art. A few good examples here - LCD industry, weapons. Not if your enemy has a habit of reverse engineering and copying everything they buy. I recall that China was has a competition for foreign companies to sell them attack helicopters. They had trials and evaluations, and settled on a South African one. You'd assume they made a big order, right? Wrong. They placed an order for a single copy, which the South African company wisely declined. I can't seem to find a source for the above story, but I think I read it in Wired maybe 5-10 years ago.

sanxiyn 8y ago

I am rooting for RISC-V so that China can compete on equal footing without these x86 and ARM ISA nonsense.

fungi 8y ago
Also building their own ISA http://en.c-sky.com/ http://en.c-sky.com/ and working to get support upstreamed https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/3/18/226 https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/3/18/226

Hasz 8y ago

A couple of counterpoints and expansions. kinda of true, assuming you want to be more than a fabless company. But spinning up a fab 1 gen behind can be profitable, especially if it means higher yields (and thus lower costs). true * Still lots of money to be made at the forefront, i.e new chemistry, new lithography, better process control, etc. Lots of money in layout and software. Pretty decent money in RF work. China has proved itself more than capable of replicating anything you put out there -- all it takes is some plans and a few key engineers, plenty of whom are Chinese nationals. I agree.

deepnotderp 8y ago
Agreed, 28nm and 16nm FF are looking to be the sweet spot nodes for a decent amount of time.

onetimemanytime 8y ago

>>Semiconductor industry is now past its prime, the profit and salaries lower than the nascent Internet companies. Past its prime in what sense? We'll need them for the foreseeable future. Salaries and all can be fixed virtually overnight, with funding...like this $47 Billion.

jk2323 8y ago

They already have the MIPS based Loongson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson#Loongson_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson#Loongson_3 Out of curiosity I tried to buy the Loongson 3 one year ago on Taobao (Chinese ebay/Amazon). It was basically impossible to buy except for underpowered old versions. As far as I know the company has been called a scam by some Chinese (just sucking gov incentives etc.) If you are interested, not very powerful MIPS boards are available: https://creatordev.io/ci20.html https://creatordev.io/ci20.html I guess the company "imagination" is for sale too. There were some issues last year.

dogma1138 8y ago

China got x86 via a joint venture with AMD, there is also VIA.

rasz 8y ago
and Intel was forced to give away Atom to Spreadtrum

jeffreyrogers 8y ago

What are the patent issues? Intel probably doesn't have patents in China, so a Chinese company could make its own x86 chips for use in China.

netheril96 8y ago
China recognizes US patents. I believe that is one of the promises made when joining the WTO. Of course, China could decide one day not to honor these patents, but that would fuel Trump's narrative and escalate this trade war into even greater levels. China does not want that, not yet.
- jeffreyrogers 8y ago
  I don't think that means what you think it means. US patents only cover the manufacture, sale, and use of the patented thing in the US. You would have to get a separate patent in China, Europe, or any other jurisdiction to prevent someone from legally making use of your invention. Similarly, in the US you can make something that was patented in China as long as it isn't also patented in the US.