4 ms·

I'm surprised to see a typical Chinese "self-media" article being shared here, coz I myself see these as nothing more than gossip blogs, so please take them wit

by nomay 6y ago

I'm surprised to see a typical Chinese "self-media" article being shared here, coz I myself see these as nothing more than gossip blogs, so please take them with huge amount of salt or just avoid it. At least in my experience these are highly refined entertainment product with little to no regard to what's fact, opinion and pure made-up bullshit, their only goal is to maximize click numbers, thus more often than not written by internet marketing gurus rather than ones with real and deep domain knowledge, influencer is a more apt name for them. The owner of this self-media publicly pledging allegiance to Huawei coz he got scholarships from them also didn't help with it.

chx 6y ago
Nonetheless , I was unaware of TSMC and ASML making a lithography breakthrough before EUV and so that at least is valuable information.
- velikhan 6y ago
  That part of the story checks out too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_lithography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_lithography https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn-Jeng_Lin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn-Jeng_Lin Myself, am amused how the translators did not consult English sources and also how the writers of the wikipedia article probably didn’t know about the analogy to immersion microscope objectives. This industry is curiously insular.
  - MangoCoffee 6y ago
    a lot people on hacker news believed if you throw enough money into something like China is doing with semi industry that somehow you can get your fab into a leading fab. you can't just build something with off the shelves equipment. if that's the case then China big fund in 2014 (before trade war, China already pouring money into semi industry) already bearing fruits but SMIC have to poach TSMC engineers to get them into 14nm. leading foundry like TSMC pour in a lot of money into R&D with their partners. TSMC's ecosystem along is unrivaled. there is also the trust issue. TSMC's main and only business is making chip for their customers unlike Samsung which is a Conglomerate. what the author said about Apple is true(move away from Samsung's supply chain). that's why Apple is now a core customer of TSMC. edit: i recall a interview with Morris Chang by a Chinese reporter. she bring up the question about the Chinese big fund. she say if Chinese govrt throw its weight behind the semi industry. it will over take TSMC. Chang said you can't buy "experiences" it will take time for Chinese fab to learn all the mistakes and gain the know-hows. there's a lot going into the production than simply buying semi equipment and somehow magically you can get to the yield level that'll be profitable. Intel's 10nm yield problem is the example of that. sorry, English is not my first language.
    - vkou 6y ago
      Everything you are saying is true, but chip fab independence is a national-security priority for China, and national-security priorities aren't constrained by next-quarter-earnings market pressures. The strategy also does not just consist of buying off-the-shelf equipment, but also recruiting experts and specialists and designers. It may not overtake TSMC next year, or in five years, but I'd be surprised if a Chinese firm does not reach parity in ten years.
      - MangoCoffee 6y ago
        China already throw in the big fund back in 2014. i believed they started the big fund II. we'll see how that goes. >recruiting experts and specialists and designers they already did that by poaching engineers from TSMC and else where. >I'd be surprised if a Chinese firm does not reach parity in ten years that's if the leading foundries just stand still. GlobalFoundries drop out of 7nm. i'll be surprised if the Chinese fabs can catch up in just 10 years.
    - totalZero 6y ago
      The difference being that the US already has companies with experts and institutional knowledge. The fact that China lacks those things is a function of the pace at which it is trying to grow its semiconductor sector. The fact that China is able to collimate spending far better than the US is a function of how bad the US government is at sending money where it needs to go rather than to the Department of Defense.
rjzzleep 6y ago
How is Chinese "self-media" being gossip blogs needing salt different from all the jobs, elon musk, paul graham and other kind of hero worship this place is normally overflowing with? Don't get me wrong, I'm generally against Hero worship in general, and I have my fair share of beefs with ALL these different hero worship things, but I grew up on Bill Gates hero worship only to later find out that he sold the whole thing before writing a single line of code thanks to his moms connections and that the garage sale was a lot of money when you account for inflation. Why is one ok, and the other one is Chinese "self-media". How are all those "Steve Jobs was a godly human being I was once in a meeting with him" not all "self-media" and why do we suddenly need the Chinese prefix?
- est 6y ago
  > How is Chinese "self-media" being gossip blogs needing salt different OP meant the quotation mark should be placed on the word "Chinese"
- nomay 6y ago
  Coz Chinese people have been conditioned by a level censorship and media control unseen elsewhere, the resulting susceptibility to yummy and palatble disinformation is quite deep and prevalent, you may have read news about strong reaction about strange things from the west, you guessed it right there's alway legions of "self-media" behind it, it’s unfettered and state sanctioned algorithm-driven circlejerk machine, and the reason ByteDance's platforms make so much money. Why do I need to point out it being "Chinese"? Coz these self-media platforms are the predominant way of getting information there, nobody but old people watch TVs and read newspapers, even stated-owned news orgs have to get on it to make money. >The “Post-Truth” Publication Where Chinese Students in America Get Their News" https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-post-truth-publication-where-chinese-students-in-america-get-their-news https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-post-trut...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - tehjoker 6y ago
throwaway4good 6y ago
Why is that a problem? HN spends plenty time discussing blog entries and posts from people who are not professional media.
yorwba 6y ago
I'm also surprised to see this shared here, but mostly because of the timing. Jeff Ding translated it in June 2020: https://chinai.substack.com/p/chinai-98-techlore-the-historical https://chinai.substack.com/p/chinai-98-techlore-the-histori... Note also that he chose to translate it because it has the entertainment value of a typical Chinese "self-media" article: This week’s feature translation is a joint work with Joy Dantong Ma, who pitched this epic piece. My term for these types of pieces is “techlore:” longform pieces that read, at times, like epic poems in which the heroes (tech company leaders) wage battle over the commanding heights of the economy. “Development Bloggers” or the “Industrial Party,” usually people who have experience working in the tech industry and espouse techno-nationalist views, are emerging as a formidable force in Chinese media and the semiconductor industry is especially fertile ground for techlore. You've probably scrolled past thousands of "self-media" articles and dismissed them instantly, but for many here, it's their first encounter with the genre, so it feels new and exciting. And don't forget that HN is a highly-refined entertainment product optimized for delivering new and exciting content to its users.
foobarian 6y ago
For what it's worth I found this comic in the footnotes very touching: https://images.nvidia.com/content/APAC/blog/tw/jhh-mc-illustration-24x36in-r8-FOR-PRINT-FLAT-150dpi-OPT2.jpg https://images.nvidia.com/content/APAC/blog/tw/jhh-mc-illust...

by nomay 6y ago

chx 6y ago

Nonetheless , I was unaware of TSMC and ASML making a lithography breakthrough before EUV and so that at least is valuable information.

velikhan 6y ago
That part of the story checks out too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_lithography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_lithography https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn-Jeng_Lin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn-Jeng_Lin Myself, am amused how the translators did not consult English sources and also how the writers of the wikipedia article probably didn’t know about the analogy to immersion microscope objectives. This industry is curiously insular.
- MangoCoffee 6y ago
  a lot people on hacker news believed if you throw enough money into something like China is doing with semi industry that somehow you can get your fab into a leading fab. you can't just build something with off the shelves equipment. if that's the case then China big fund in 2014 (before trade war, China already pouring money into semi industry) already bearing fruits but SMIC have to poach TSMC engineers to get them into 14nm. leading foundry like TSMC pour in a lot of money into R&D with their partners. TSMC's ecosystem along is unrivaled. there is also the trust issue. TSMC's main and only business is making chip for their customers unlike Samsung which is a Conglomerate. what the author said about Apple is true(move away from Samsung's supply chain). that's why Apple is now a core customer of TSMC. edit: i recall a interview with Morris Chang by a Chinese reporter. she bring up the question about the Chinese big fund. she say if Chinese govrt throw its weight behind the semi industry. it will over take TSMC. Chang said you can't buy "experiences" it will take time for Chinese fab to learn all the mistakes and gain the know-hows. there's a lot going into the production than simply buying semi equipment and somehow magically you can get to the yield level that'll be profitable. Intel's 10nm yield problem is the example of that. sorry, English is not my first language.
  - vkou 6y ago
    Everything you are saying is true, but chip fab independence is a national-security priority for China, and national-security priorities aren't constrained by next-quarter-earnings market pressures. The strategy also does not just consist of buying off-the-shelf equipment, but also recruiting experts and specialists and designers. It may not overtake TSMC next year, or in five years, but I'd be surprised if a Chinese firm does not reach parity in ten years.
    - MangoCoffee 6y ago
      China already throw in the big fund back in 2014. i believed they started the big fund II. we'll see how that goes. >recruiting experts and specialists and designers they already did that by poaching engineers from TSMC and else where. >I'd be surprised if a Chinese firm does not reach parity in ten years that's if the leading foundries just stand still. GlobalFoundries drop out of 7nm. i'll be surprised if the Chinese fabs can catch up in just 10 years.
  - totalZero 6y ago
    The difference being that the US already has companies with experts and institutional knowledge. The fact that China lacks those things is a function of the pace at which it is trying to grow its semiconductor sector. The fact that China is able to collimate spending far better than the US is a function of how bad the US government is at sending money where it needs to go rather than to the Department of Defense.

rjzzleep 6y ago

How is Chinese "self-media" being gossip blogs needing salt different from all the jobs, elon musk, paul graham and other kind of hero worship this place is normally overflowing with? Don't get me wrong, I'm generally against Hero worship in general, and I have my fair share of beefs with ALL these different hero worship things, but I grew up on Bill Gates hero worship only to later find out that he sold the whole thing before writing a single line of code thanks to his moms connections and that the garage sale was a lot of money when you account for inflation. Why is one ok, and the other one is Chinese "self-media". How are all those "Steve Jobs was a godly human being I was once in a meeting with him" not all "self-media" and why do we suddenly need the Chinese prefix?

est 6y ago
> How is Chinese "self-media" being gossip blogs needing salt different OP meant the quotation mark should be placed on the word "Chinese"
nomay 6y ago
Coz Chinese people have been conditioned by a level censorship and media control unseen elsewhere, the resulting susceptibility to yummy and palatble disinformation is quite deep and prevalent, you may have read news about strong reaction about strange things from the west, you guessed it right there's alway legions of "self-media" behind it, it’s unfettered and state sanctioned algorithm-driven circlejerk machine, and the reason ByteDance's platforms make so much money. Why do I need to point out it being "Chinese"? Coz these self-media platforms are the predominant way of getting information there, nobody but old people watch TVs and read newspapers, even stated-owned news orgs have to get on it to make money. >The “Post-Truth” Publication Where Chinese Students in America Get Their News" https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-post-truth-publication-where-chinese-students-in-america-get-their-news https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-post-trut...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tehjoker 6y ago

throwaway4good 6y ago

Why is that a problem? HN spends plenty time discussing blog entries and posts from people who are not professional media.

yorwba 6y ago

I'm also surprised to see this shared here, but mostly because of the timing. Jeff Ding translated it in June 2020: https://chinai.substack.com/p/chinai-98-techlore-the-historical https://chinai.substack.com/p/chinai-98-techlore-the-histori... Note also that he chose to translate it because it has the entertainment value of a typical Chinese "self-media" article: This week’s feature translation is a joint work with Joy Dantong Ma, who pitched this epic piece. My term for these types of pieces is “techlore:” longform pieces that read, at times, like epic poems in which the heroes (tech company leaders) wage battle over the commanding heights of the economy. “Development Bloggers” or the “Industrial Party,” usually people who have experience working in the tech industry and espouse techno-nationalist views, are emerging as a formidable force in Chinese media and the semiconductor industry is especially fertile ground for techlore. You've probably scrolled past thousands of "self-media" articles and dismissed them instantly, but for many here, it's their first encounter with the genre, so it feels new and exciting. And don't forget that HN is a highly-refined entertainment product optimized for delivering new and exciting content to its users.

foobarian 6y ago

For what it's worth I found this comic in the footnotes very touching: https://images.nvidia.com/content/APAC/blog/tw/jhh-mc-illustration-24x36in-r8-FOR-PRINT-FLAT-150dpi-OPT2.jpg https://images.nvidia.com/content/APAC/blog/tw/jhh-mc-illust...