4 ms·

>Huawei can still buy SoC with US technology in it if it's designed and manufactured by others. I don't get it, if the U.S. wants to cripple Huawei why would t

by euix 6y ago

>Huawei can still buy SoC with US technology in it if it's designed and manufactured by others. I don't get it, if the U.S. wants to cripple Huawei why would they let you buy SoC that way? The whole point I thought was that any company dealing with Huawei that used some material proportion of U.S. originated technology to deliver goods to Huawei had to stop. Which means in order for Huawei to build chips it needs a supply chain that is almost completely independent of the U.S. The closets analogy I can think of is like building nuclear submarines. They are notoriously hard because its not possible to globalize the supply chain, everything in its design must be sourced within the country thus requires a specialized supply chain.

Nokinside 6y ago
US actions must be proportional and related to the damage that they attribute to Huawei. Even in close to lawless Trump era there WTO exists and sanctions can be challenged and ignored by other countries if they are excessive.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  Trump has put the WTO out of action by blocking the appointment of judges.
magicsmoke 6y ago
Chip design involves a lot of upfront investment cost that's recuperated by selling at volume. If the US allowed Huawei to make its own chips, Huawei's chips eat into the global sales volume, profits, and future R&D funds of Qualcomm. If the US simply banned Huawei from buying Qualcomm chips, Qualcomm still takes a hit on its sales volume and profitability and nothing has changed on the US side of the books. But if the US bars Huawei from getting its chips manufactured and gives it no choice but to buy from Qualcomm, Qualcomm's sales volumes stay elevated and it is able to recoup its R&D investments. Ultimately, a big part of the US/China tech war is due to the structure of high tech R&D, which is to sink a massive amount of capital at the beginning in hopes of getting a global monopoly and being able to sell to everyone in the world to recoup that initial cost. While China was a consumer and assembler of US technology, the US could rest easy knowing that it had a captive global market for high tech products to fuel its future R&D costs and stay ahead. But when China starts developing and selling alternatives, there's not enough buyers and sales volume to support both Chinese and US cutting edge tech companies, and some of them will go under in the decades following. We saw this happen with Taiwan's TSMC becoming the only real vendor of the latest semiconductor process nodes after decades of US fabs falling out of the race. But Taiwan is under US military influence, China isn't. Ultimately, this is about keeping China on a leash as a consumer instead of a producer of technology as much as possible because there isn't enough customers and capital in the world for two high-tech R&D superpowers to siphon at the same time.

by euix 6y ago

Nokinside 6y ago

US actions must be proportional and related to the damage that they attribute to Huawei. Even in close to lawless Trump era there WTO exists and sanctions can be challenged and ignored by other countries if they are excessive.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
Trump has put the WTO out of action by blocking the appointment of judges.

magicsmoke 6y ago

Chip design involves a lot of upfront investment cost that's recuperated by selling at volume. If the US allowed Huawei to make its own chips, Huawei's chips eat into the global sales volume, profits, and future R&D funds of Qualcomm. If the US simply banned Huawei from buying Qualcomm chips, Qualcomm still takes a hit on its sales volume and profitability and nothing has changed on the US side of the books. But if the US bars Huawei from getting its chips manufactured and gives it no choice but to buy from Qualcomm, Qualcomm's sales volumes stay elevated and it is able to recoup its R&D investments. Ultimately, a big part of the US/China tech war is due to the structure of high tech R&D, which is to sink a massive amount of capital at the beginning in hopes of getting a global monopoly and being able to sell to everyone in the world to recoup that initial cost. While China was a consumer and assembler of US technology, the US could rest easy knowing that it had a captive global market for high tech products to fuel its future R&D costs and stay ahead. But when China starts developing and selling alternatives, there's not enough buyers and sales volume to support both Chinese and US cutting edge tech companies, and some of them will go under in the decades following. We saw this happen with Taiwan's TSMC becoming the only real vendor of the latest semiconductor process nodes after decades of US fabs falling out of the race. But Taiwan is under US military influence, China isn't. Ultimately, this is about keeping China on a leash as a consumer instead of a producer of technology as much as possible because there isn't enough customers and capital in the world for two high-tech R&D superpowers to siphon at the same time.