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Unlike Huawei, TikTok doesn't have critical production dependency on the US (specialized semiconductors). Huawei also won't have been too impacted if just their

Unlike Huawei, TikTok doesn't have critical production dependency on the US (specialized semiconductors). Huawei also won't have been too impacted if just their imports were blocked in the US. TikTok will be hurt without US customers, but they are too big in China that they will easily survive. And will easily compete worldwide against any US company.

sudosysgen 6y ago
Even Huawei functionally has an advanced enough node at SMIC (14nm-ish) to fulfill their core industry.
- kyboren 6y ago
  For their handset SoCs, sure. But the real prize appears to be the base station market. As I understand it, Huawei's base stations are critically dependent upon Xilinx FPGAs. With those no longer available to them, Huawei is in a difficult position. They can make their own FPGAs, true. These FPGAs will not be commercially competitive with Xilinx and Intel, so development costs won't be defrayed by commercial sales. IP laws may effectively prevent their sale in Western markets, anyway. And base stations made with these FPGAs won't be as commercially competitive, either (they'll be larger, more power hungry, produce more heat, etc.). I don't know enough about 5G or base stations to say with confidence what other alternatives they might have. But I'm sure that they will be sub-optimal, at the very least imposing billions of USD in costs to Huawei/PLA/CPC.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    I wouldn't be so sure. 14nm is already competitive with Xilinx FPGAs in terms of efficiency. All Huawei has to do is build ASICs instead, and they should keep or improve their performance. Xilinx is on a mix of 20nm and 16nm, by the way. The billions of dollars that the Chinese Government will invest in order to compensate for the sanctions might have the unintended side effects of actually making performance of Huawei gear more efficient. The jump from FPGA to ASIC is pretty big as far as efficiency, and being able to have it financed for free to defend against US sanctions is pretty sweet. They also happen to have stockpiled enough FPGAs to buy time for the transition.
    - kyboren 6y ago
      They are not currently using ASICs, so ASICs are presumably not a good fit for the application. Maybe the NRE costs are too excessive given the very small volume, flexibility/updateability is essential, TTM is too long, something else, or some combination of the above. Any way you slice it, being cut off from Xilinx is going to cost Huawei. Building a competitive ASIC will also be significantly more challenging now that Huawei has been cut off from all the major EDA companies. Finally, I assume that Xilinx is well into development on future product lines based on newer processes. It would be extremely difficult for Huawei to bootstrap their way to commercially competitive FPGAs.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nilkn 6y ago
The reasons I'd seen for considering a US ban on TikTok were all security related (i.e., various claims to the effect of TikTok collecting data on US citizens for usage by the CCP). Those reasons, if valid, would seem to remain valid even in the face of your points here.
- itake 6y ago
  And controlling the content narrative. E.g. pro-china content could be promoted directly to young Americans.
- zjaffee 6y ago
  Are these valid criticisms? Did everyone forget about the NSA spying scandal a few years back where the US was monitoring huge amounts of internet traffic in Europe on American owned platforms.
  - nilkn 6y ago
    I don't know if they're valid. I think my point is structured in such a way that it doesn't matter in this context: those concerns, if they are or were ever valid, are not rendered invalid by the points that the above commenter was making. I don't believe I have the background to comment meaningfully on whether TikTok is an actual security threat to US citizens or whether the US government would be hypocritical in banning TikTok for such a reason. The question of hypocrisy also seems like a separate one to me (i.e., should one not do the correct thing because it would be seen as hypocritical by some?).
  - _prototype_ 6y ago
    Would you rather a country that many people around the world wants to migrate to in order to pursue their dreams spying on you (USA), or a country where people are put in concentration camps (China and the Uyghurs) spying on you? I don't know about you, but I prefer the former as lesser of two evils. I see your argument a lot and its quite stupid.
    - patrickaljord 6y ago

sudosysgen 6y ago

Even Huawei functionally has an advanced enough node at SMIC (14nm-ish) to fulfill their core industry.

kyboren 6y ago
For their handset SoCs, sure. But the real prize appears to be the base station market. As I understand it, Huawei's base stations are critically dependent upon Xilinx FPGAs. With those no longer available to them, Huawei is in a difficult position. They can make their own FPGAs, true. These FPGAs will not be commercially competitive with Xilinx and Intel, so development costs won't be defrayed by commercial sales. IP laws may effectively prevent their sale in Western markets, anyway. And base stations made with these FPGAs won't be as commercially competitive, either (they'll be larger, more power hungry, produce more heat, etc.). I don't know enough about 5G or base stations to say with confidence what other alternatives they might have. But I'm sure that they will be sub-optimal, at the very least imposing billions of USD in costs to Huawei/PLA/CPC.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  I wouldn't be so sure. 14nm is already competitive with Xilinx FPGAs in terms of efficiency. All Huawei has to do is build ASICs instead, and they should keep or improve their performance. Xilinx is on a mix of 20nm and 16nm, by the way. The billions of dollars that the Chinese Government will invest in order to compensate for the sanctions might have the unintended side effects of actually making performance of Huawei gear more efficient. The jump from FPGA to ASIC is pretty big as far as efficiency, and being able to have it financed for free to defend against US sanctions is pretty sweet. They also happen to have stockpiled enough FPGAs to buy time for the transition.
  - kyboren 6y ago
    They are not currently using ASICs, so ASICs are presumably not a good fit for the application. Maybe the NRE costs are too excessive given the very small volume, flexibility/updateability is essential, TTM is too long, something else, or some combination of the above. Any way you slice it, being cut off from Xilinx is going to cost Huawei. Building a competitive ASIC will also be significantly more challenging now that Huawei has been cut off from all the major EDA companies. Finally, I assume that Xilinx is well into development on future product lines based on newer processes. It would be extremely difficult for Huawei to bootstrap their way to commercially competitive FPGAs.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

nilkn 6y ago

The reasons I'd seen for considering a US ban on TikTok were all security related (i.e., various claims to the effect of TikTok collecting data on US citizens for usage by the CCP). Those reasons, if valid, would seem to remain valid even in the face of your points here.

itake 6y ago
And controlling the content narrative. E.g. pro-china content could be promoted directly to young Americans.
zjaffee 6y ago
Are these valid criticisms? Did everyone forget about the NSA spying scandal a few years back where the US was monitoring huge amounts of internet traffic in Europe on American owned platforms.
- nilkn 6y ago
  I don't know if they're valid. I think my point is structured in such a way that it doesn't matter in this context: those concerns, if they are or were ever valid, are not rendered invalid by the points that the above commenter was making. I don't believe I have the background to comment meaningfully on whether TikTok is an actual security threat to US citizens or whether the US government would be hypocritical in banning TikTok for such a reason. The question of hypocrisy also seems like a separate one to me (i.e., should one not do the correct thing because it would be seen as hypocritical by some?).
- _prototype_ 6y ago
  Would you rather a country that many people around the world wants to migrate to in order to pursue their dreams spying on you (USA), or a country where people are put in concentration camps (China and the Uyghurs) spying on you? I don't know about you, but I prefer the former as lesser of two evils. I see your argument a lot and its quite stupid.
  - patrickaljord 6y ago