4 ms·

You'd have to be insane to keep any of your sensitive IP in China, honestly. But mostly I assume they stick to the U.S. because that's where the talent is (and

by jrs95 8y ago

You'd have to be insane to keep any of your sensitive IP in China, honestly. But mostly I assume they stick to the U.S. because that's where the talent is (and that's the government they need to have the closest relationship with, too)

projectramo 8y ago
Isn't all Apple's hardware IP "in" China?
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  Pretty much. Hardware is in China, patents and money are in Ireland, software development and hardware / visual design is in the US.
- sigstoat 8y ago
  as a simple example, not necessarily realistic, consider the circuit boards of the iphone. yes, they've got to ship the gerber files to china so the boardhouses can fab the boards. but those are just images of the copper and mask layers. apple doesn't have to ship the electrical schematics, with tolerances and notes and explanations of why things are done the way they're done, outside of their office building in california. same with their ASICs; the masks and such have got to go to the fabs, but not the HDL describing the logic. so, certainly some of their IP ends up over there, but not necessarily the juiciest bits.
  - gowld 8y ago
    So, their outsource partners can't invent new things, but can clone every existing thing for a small fraction of the price? That's a good deal for them.
    - mkhalil 8y ago
      It doesn't really work like that either. You can buy iPhones and take them apart, so you have the logic board. Do you know how to install Ubuntu on it? Without the logic behind why the board was designed that way, it's going to be non-trivial to reverse engineer what's going on. Think of it as a .exe file. Cracking software isn't a trivial task. Cracking hardware is harder.
watertom 8y ago
In order to do business in China you need to partner with a Chinese company, that Chinese company has another partner, it's the Chinese Government. Everything you share with your partner is automatically shared with the Government and the Government shares all of that data with all of their other companies. So if you want to manufacture a CPU, your partner needs to know all the IP, if you want to make LCD panel, your partner needs to know all your IP, etc. This is the reason it seems China is supercharged, they are forcing companies to share IP in order to get access to their market, and that IP is shared with every other relevant company in China.
frockington 8y ago
When I worked in telecom fake hardware and plans would routinely be given. Even non sensitive IP was never trusted with China

by jrs95 8y ago

projectramo 8y ago

Isn't all Apple's hardware IP "in" China?

Cthulhu_ 8y ago
Pretty much. Hardware is in China, patents and money are in Ireland, software development and hardware / visual design is in the US.
sigstoat 8y ago
as a simple example, not necessarily realistic, consider the circuit boards of the iphone. yes, they've got to ship the gerber files to china so the boardhouses can fab the boards. but those are just images of the copper and mask layers. apple doesn't have to ship the electrical schematics, with tolerances and notes and explanations of why things are done the way they're done, outside of their office building in california. same with their ASICs; the masks and such have got to go to the fabs, but not the HDL describing the logic. so, certainly some of their IP ends up over there, but not necessarily the juiciest bits.
- gowld 8y ago
  So, their outsource partners can't invent new things, but can clone every existing thing for a small fraction of the price? That's a good deal for them.
  - mkhalil 8y ago
    It doesn't really work like that either. You can buy iPhones and take them apart, so you have the logic board. Do you know how to install Ubuntu on it? Without the logic behind why the board was designed that way, it's going to be non-trivial to reverse engineer what's going on. Think of it as a .exe file. Cracking software isn't a trivial task. Cracking hardware is harder.

watertom 8y ago

In order to do business in China you need to partner with a Chinese company, that Chinese company has another partner, it's the Chinese Government. Everything you share with your partner is automatically shared with the Government and the Government shares all of that data with all of their other companies. So if you want to manufacture a CPU, your partner needs to know all the IP, if you want to make LCD panel, your partner needs to know all your IP, etc. This is the reason it seems China is supercharged, they are forcing companies to share IP in order to get access to their market, and that IP is shared with every other relevant company in China.

frockington 8y ago

When I worked in telecom fake hardware and plans would routinely be given. Even non sensitive IP was never trusted with China