15 ms·

Regarding Proposed US Restrictions on RISC-V

213 points by vitplister 3y ago

tromp 3y ago
Site is partially hugged to death. It has a copy of a letter that Andrew ‘bunnie’ Huang sent > Regarding Proposed US Restrictions on RISC-V > A bipartisan group of 18 lawmakers in the US Congress have recently amplified a request to the White House and the Secretary of Commerce to place restrictions on Americans working with RISC-V (see also the initial request from the Senate) in order to prevent China from gaining dominance in CPU technology. > The request is facially misguided; any restrictions would only serve to reduce American participation in an important emerging technology, while bolstering ARM’s position as an incumbent near-monopoly provider of embedded CPUs. > When the first report came out, I hoped it was just a blip that would go away, but with the broader bi-partisan group asking for restrictions, I felt I could no longer just stand by and watch: I am an active participant in the RISC-V ecosystem. I’m also subject to US law. > I did the one thing any American can do, which is write a letter summarizing my thoughts on the issue, and sending it to the White House, Department of Commerce, and the relevant members of Congress
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
edflsafoiewq 3y ago
Does anyone know what restrictions have actually been proposed? Media reporting on it is uselessly vague.
- BizarroLand 3y ago
  Looks like what they want is to stop Americans from collaborating on RISC-V with any PRC company: Oct 6 (Reuters) - In a new front in the U.S.-China tech war, President Joe Biden's administration is facing pressure from some lawmakers to restrict American companies from working on a freely available chip technology widely used in China - a move that could upend how the global technology industry collaborates across borders. At issue is RISC-V, pronounced "risk five," an open-source technology that competes with costly proprietary technology from British semiconductor and software design company Arm Holdings (O9Ty.F). RISC-V can be used as a key ingredient for anything from a smartphone chip to advanced processors for artificial intelligence. Some lawmakers - including two Republican House of Representatives committee chairmen, Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Mark Warner - are urging Biden's administration to take action regarding RISC-V, citing national security grounds. The lawmakers expressed concerns that Beijing is exploiting a culture of open collaboration among American companies to advance its own semiconductor industry, which could erode the current U.S. lead in the chip field and help China modernize its military. Their comments represent the first major effort to put constraints on work by U.S. companies on RISC-V. Representative Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House select committee on China, said in a statement to Reuters that the Commerce Department needs to "require any American person or company to receive an export license prior to engaging with PRC (People's Republic of China) entities on RISC-V technology." Such calls to regulate RISC-V are the latest in the U.S.-China battle over chip technology that escalated last year with sweeping export restrictions that the Biden administration has told China it will update this month. "The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is abusing RISC-V to get around U.S. dominance of the intellectual property needed to design chips. U.S. persons should not be supporting a PRC tech transfer strategy that serves to degrade U.S. export control laws," Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement to Reuters. McCaul said he wants action from the Bureau of Industry and Security, the part of the Commerce Department that oversees export-control regulations, and would pursue legislation if that does not materialize. The bureau "is constantly reviewing the technology landscape and threat environment, and continually assessing how best to apply our export control policies to protect national security and safeguard core technologies," a Commerce Department spokesperson said in a statement. "Communist China is developing open-source chip architecture to dodge our sanctions and grow its chip industry," Rubio said in a statement to Reuters. "If we don't broaden our export controls to include this threat, China will one day surpass us as the global leader in chip design." "I fear that our export-control laws are not equipped to deal with the challenge of open-source software - whether in advanced semiconductor designs like RISC-V or in the area of AI - and a dramatic paradigm shift is needed," Warner said in a statement to Reuters. RISC-V is overseen by a Swiss-based nonprofit foundation that coordinates efforts among for-profit companies to develop the technology. The RISC-V technology came from labs at the University of California, Berkeley, and later benefited from funding by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Its creators have compared it to Ethernet, USB and even the internet, which are freely available and draw on contributions from around the world to make innovation faster and cheaper.
  - whelp_24 3y ago
    Are these senators invested in ARM?
    - CamperBob2 3y ago
      These senators believe the Earth is 6000 years old. Their worldview doesn't get any more rational from there.
      - germandiago 3y ago
        I am not american but I would assume this is just mocking.
        CamperBob2 3y ago
        It's not.
        burnished 3y ago
        You would want that to be the case yeah. The search terms would be 'marco rubio' and 'young earther', I believe.
        CamperBob2 3y ago
        Not to mention, second in line to the Presidency: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mike-johnson-son-monitor-porn-intake-covenant-eyes-1234870634/?ICID=ref_fark https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mike-joh...
        BizarroLand 3y ago
        Third. The VP is second in line
        CamperBob2 3y ago
- bunnie 3y ago
  The concern is that the restrictions would follow the pattern of existing rules around semiconductor equipment and fabricated chips [1]. They are fairly broad and stipulate that US persons cannot transfer technology to any company on an entity list. iirc there was a clarification to the rule that also put a burden on US persons to confirm that they aren't working with a trading front or shell company for the listed entities, which makes any interaction potentially hazardous, because how are you even supposed to check for that? Note that violations of these rules can "include up to 20 years of imprisonment and up to $1 million in fines per violation, or both" [2]. And the use of "US persons" language means that it's not just companies, it's individual developers too. If you read the text of the rules, they restrict any kind of technology transfer to these companies. In the case of selling fabrication equipment, that's...fairly clear cut. Don't sell stuff to people on the list, and your deal was probably a few million dollars anyways so you can afford lawyers to research if you're dealing with a shell company. But the concern is for RISC-V "technology transfer", what happens if you push to a git repository, and...someone from one of these entities pulls your commits? Are you now liable? What if you give a lecture on RISC-V, and someone from one of these entities was in attendance? Or perhaps you're in charge of crafting an IP strategy for your SoC company. If you pick RISC-V, the ambiguous and changing rules around who you can license your products to is problematic; a client you have today could end up being banned tomorrow. Whereas if you license an ARM core, you don't have to worry about going to jail. It then becomes a no-brainer to just license the ARM core. Basically, the concern is they will copy/paste the existing rules that are somewhat more tightly confined because they apply to atoms, but instead insert language referring to bits and ideas. [1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/10/13/2022-21658/implementation-of-additional-export-controls-certain-advanced-computing-and-semiconductor https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/10/13/2022-21... [2] https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/enforcement/oee/penalties https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/enforcement/oee/penalties
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  Mostly ones that defy constitutional guarantees of free speech.
deutschepost 3y ago
Wasn’t RISC-V developed in the US? And the first company to produce chips with this ISA, SiFive is US based too. Why would it make sense to ban it in the US? They literally invented it.
- SllX 3y ago
  It doesn’t. Right now we’re having an anti-PRC moment. There are good and intelligent ways to have that moment, and there bad and stupid ways to have that moment. This is one of the latter, but Congress is a deliberative body within a free democracy so we’re going to see all of it.
- wmf 3y ago
  The concern is that open-sourcing processor design knowledge will create a "reverse brain drain", allowing other countries (especially the boogeyman China) to catch up. It's nonsense in a globalized world.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  This is basically ARM lobbying to hamper their challenger. There is no legitimate reason for it. (That doesn't mean we don't still need to fight it.)
  - 0xDEF 3y ago
    Something to look out for in recent years are cultist grassroot investors who organize on Reddit and Twitter to influence politicians to do something that is favorable to their stock and harass journalists and YouTubers who report critically and harm their stock. r/TeslaInvestors and r/AMD_Stock are some of the worst. I can easily imagine some in the latter organizing to get RISC-V banned in the US.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      Eh. RISC-V isn't really competing with AMD64, which is high performance processors that can natively run x86 binaries, neither of which RISC-V would do any time soon. And if there were they would most likely be made by AMD, who would then make money selling them. The loser from RISC-V is clearly ARM because it's not nearly as hard to produce a low-power processor with mid-level performance, which is the core of ARM's market but RISC-V allows the vendors to avoid paying for the ARM license. And unlike x86, most existing ARM software isn't distributed as third party binaries tied to a particular architecture and could easily be recompiled for something else.
error9348 3y ago
Letter in question https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/11.1.23-riscv-letter.pdf https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites...
bitwize 3y ago
Oh noes! The Chinese are using some tech. Better prevent American companies from competing with them!
TinkersW 3y ago
The fact that RISC-V jumped to Switzerland after being funded by the US during its development makes me inclined to say screw RISC-V. It also makes RISC-V foreign just as the author complains that ARM is foreign. I think placing restrictions on Americans working with PRC on RISC-V related stuff is a pretty reasonable thing to do.
- sschueller 3y ago
  Let's ban AI research too and be left behind. /s I see this as short sighted anti China fear mongering but China is now at a point where is can invotate itself with out the help of "western" tech.
  - whelp_24 3y ago
    I mean Altman is working on that one...
  - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
    Let's sanction China from using Microsoft or Apple products, forcing them to turn to open source operating systems like Linux, and then let's make Linux illegal, ensuring that only government-approved, sufficiently-backdoored corporate operating systems are allowed! Any responsible, patriotic citizen should be onboard with that!
- ertian 3y ago
  This makes the move to Switzerland look prescient.
- colinsane 3y ago
  > The fact that RISC-V jumped to Switzerland after being funded by the US during its development makes me inclined to say screw RISC-V. are you perhaps referring to some specific company in the RISC-V space? or are you actually saying "damn, foreign actors embraced an idea we originated, guess i've gotta flip positions and decide the idea of an open ISA is bad now"?
  - 3y ago
kmeisthax 3y ago
China should stop stealing our IP and create their own technology wait no not like that
- OhMeadhbh 3y ago
  Those darn'd Chinese training a bunch of engineers, participating in a global industry, producing a product at rock-bottom prices and then not forgetting everything they had to learn to help the rest of the world make chips! Dang Them!
  - hangonhn 3y ago
    Remember when we were all about global free trade and supply side economics and consumer surpluses? I guess it's no fun when someone else does it to us. Sarcasm aside, I think we are now realizing that talking about supply side without considering the demand side (i.e. workers who can afford even these abundant goods) is going to be very detrimental in the long run.
    - kmeisthax 3y ago
      Not just "very detrimental in the long run" - more like "actively fueling far-right fascists in the very short term". The working class does not care who promises them revenge, or even if that revenge is targeted at their oppressors, as long as revenge is eventually provided by someone.
      - OhMeadhbh 3y ago
        I don't disagree with you about breeding fascists now. Though I wonder, in a few years after we do more Trump and things fail to get better, and then we swing back the other way and elect the ghost of Bernie Sanders (cause I really don't know anyone on the left who could impress the disaffected middle-American electorate.) What then? I guess that's why the far right wing is trying to take over before we have to have elections again. I'm just curious if swinging back and forth between left and right wing isn't more destructive than just right wing.
RetroTechie 3y ago
It's amazing that the move of RISC-V Foundation to Switzerland (as RISC-V International) was actually called for. Even more amazing is US lawmakers continuing to try & shoot the US in the foot. RISC-V is now globally developed, that ship has sailed. Same for products based on it. The US can't prevent its 'proliferation'. Only reduce the degree to which US entities are part of, and profit from that. Are US lawmakers that dumb? (ok I guess that's a rhetorical question).
- andrewflnr 3y ago
  The practical question is, do US lawmakers believe their voters are that dumb? (Mostly yes)
  - dmvdoug 3y ago
    Nah, they really are this uninformed for the most part (there are notable exceptions of course). Story time! I went to law school in DC. One of my classmates worked as a staffer in the office of a prominent (leadership-level) congressperson (she was from his district). She had also done an internship with the UN. This congressperson had made public statements about defunding the UN and blah blah blah. He took her out to lunch one day and asked her to explain what the UN was and how it worked in the 30 minutes they had so he could field questions he was getting about his public statements.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - bluGill 3y ago
    You don't have to fall back to that. It isn't possible to know all the issues facing national attention. Someone puts in a good/scary story about something and it is really hard to see why that story is wrong. Often the story isn't even wrong, it is just not the complete picture and the evils of what the story misses out on are even worse. There are a bit over 500 people with power in DC, they cannot possibly debate all the possible issues that come up. China learning from US contributions to Risc-v are not a good thing. However the obvious proposed solution wouldn't stop China from learning (it might delay them a few months, but they have plenty of smart engineers who can figure this out), and so will harm the US more.
olalonde 3y ago
It blows my mind that the US keeps treating China, its biggest trade partner, as an enemy. There is no way that China would ever initiate a war against the US. It feels like, if anything, this insistence on treating China as an enemy increases risk for the US.
- trynumber9 3y ago
  The assumption is that they will initiate a real war against Taiwan at some point. The result of that assumption is to prepare by slowly phasing out trade where possible rather than waiting for it all to happen at once when they do invade.
  - QuarterReptile 3y ago
    And the result of that preparation is that both sides are less entangled with one another and thus (theoretically) more ready to be at war with one another. Anyway, the chain of who-started-it doesn't have a first link. There is no value-free way to assess it all..
    - TinkersW 3y ago
      Repeatedly implying you will attack Taiwan is a pretty clear first link.
      - olalonde 3y ago
        Taiwan isn't a US state as far as I know. The US doesn't even recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state.
        throwaway626 3y ago
        The US has a clear interest in preventing reunification with the mainland, regardless of the island’s legal status.
        QuarterReptile 3y ago
zelon88 3y ago
So correct me if I'm wrong, but you'll still be allowed to push public commits to a public RISC-V related repo, but you'll need a special government license to resolve issues opened by anyone related to China?
- phendrenad2 3y ago
  That's my assumption as well
- Qem 3y ago
  People will need to publish commits in book form again, like the Phil Zimmerman did with PGP, to have freedom of expression. See: https://philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/BookPreface.html https://philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/BookPreface.html I'm picturing RISC-V processors being sold in boxes that are actually small bible-like books with ornate binding, full of paper printed source code, with small hollows inside where the chips fit.
- hangonhn 3y ago
  > you'll need a special government license to resolve issues opened by anyone related to China? Yes but that's very similar to how the EUV "ban" works too. As long as you can get a license it's fine but getting the license is expected to be very hard and probably represents a big enough of a risk that you can't base your business around that. So effectively it is a ban. The license thing does give the executive branch a good deal of leverage when negotiating with China. I think this is likely what the US is really after anyways. It's a pretty hard nosed renegotiation of the existing relationship by both sides.
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
When discussing a highly technical issue such as this you have to be careful to use the correct terminology: This is some dumb shit.
lolinder 3y ago
The numbers aren't large, but it's worth noting that 7 out of 18 signatories of the original letter received donatations from Intel's PAC in 2022 [0]: Mike Gallagher: $6000 Marco Rubio: $2500 Haley Stevens: $2000 Carlos Gimenez: $5000 Darin LaHood: $7000 Andy Barr: $2000 Ashley Hinson: $10000 Total: $34500 [0] https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/intel-corp/C00125641/candidate-recipients/2022?t1-search=Marco&t0-search=Hinson https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs...
- rany_ 3y ago
  I sure hope they aren't that cheap.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Zigurd 3y ago
    Buying politicians, other than the ones that are in the headlines every day, is astonishingly cheap.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    As I understand it, the donation is not the price of legislation, it's the price to get your foot in the door for additional lobbying efforts later. If a lobbyist connected to a donor requests a meeting, they get it, and if the lobbyist can then make a convincing enough case (preferably legally but sometimes otherwise) they can get action in their favor.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - bsder 3y ago
    Oh, that gave me a good laugh. When you think of US politicians: think of the guy who owns the biggest used car dealership in Podunkville, Midwest. That's your average US politician. Generally: the scummiest, griftiest jerk who happened to get lucky. Generally by inheritance as building the business takes too much energy to screw around with national politics. Not somebody smart. Not somebody moral. Think SBF but no education and knowledge whatsoever. Is that person that cheap? Yah, sure, you betcha.
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
Headlines so weird, you have to click... I was thinking to myself, there's no way that someone's acting like it's 1988 again, and we have to embargo this from leaving the country for fear Saddam Hussein will use it to construct a 50 megaflops supercomputer with which to pre-calculate artillery firing solution tables. Then I clicked, and it really is that dumb. Way to go Congress.
tcgv 3y ago
While I strongly agree with the blog post and letter, I believe the letter would be more effective if it spent more time explaining how the proposed restrictions will most likely backfire, i.e., put the US in a less advantageous position to defend its dominance in CPU technology with regard to China. No politician or regulator would like to be labelled as someone who favored a foreign competitor country.
- m12k 3y ago
  "Any barrier for US persons’ participation will only slow American progress in developing and adopting this technology. It will have an effect opposite of that intended by lawmakers." Sounds like the letter/blog post already does make this point?
  - tcgv 3y ago
    It does. However, if this point were more central to the letter, it would have a greater impact on the reader. For instance, explicitly demonstrating the numerous ways in which American progress could be impeded, explaining how China and Chinese business owners could get ahead in RISC-V technology, and maybe drawing an analogy with the restrictions imposed on federal funding for stem cell research that affected the US in the global landscape [1], among other examples. Frequently, politicians prioritize their personal agendas and interests, so it's essential to thoroughly address those aspects. PS: I'm not a US national, so I'm only analyzing the topic rather than engaging in it. [1] https://hsci.harvard.edu/impact-federal-policy-global-competition-stem-cell-research https://hsci.harvard.edu/impact-federal-policy-global-compet...
- RachelF 3y ago
  Sadly, the letter would be more effective if it included a large "donation" check, for an amount greater than those Intel is writing.
  - skyyler 3y ago
    Isn't this practice called corruption in other countries? How is this legal?
mschuster91 3y ago
> This has long been a trade-off of American innovation philosophy: we can freely exercise our First Amendment rights to share ideas, creating a vibrant intellectual exchange, even at the risk of others benefiting from reading our textbooks, journals and patents. Sometimes, we have to re-evaluate our positions. We cannot risk supplying our enemies with stuff they can turn around and use as weapons against ourselves any more. The sooner broader society wakes up and realizes that we, as collective Western nations, are at war, the better. It may not be a "conventional" war yet, but that doesn't make it less dangerous!
- krispyfi 3y ago
  Have you ever read "The Player of Games" by Iain M. Banks? We won't win by allowing the enemy to make us more like them.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > We won't win by allowing the enemy to make us more like them. I agree on that when it comes to a ton of the "anti terror" measures introduced after 9/11 because these are plain bullshit that don't do any objective good, other than annoy passengers. But regarding high tech capability? Not at all. We have to do everything we can to impede China's progress there, at all costs - because the cost of a Chinese victory would be outright catastrophic.
    - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
      If what separates the status quo from Chinese victory is having RISC-V chips, we already lost. (And spoiler: modern technology won't give them victory over the West. Not even close.)
      - germandiago 3y ago
        I think there are far ways in which we are destroying ourselves by not focusing in many of the important aspects AND not sticking to our values. If we promote free market (more or less, nothing is pure), freedom of speech and many others as those should be respected as much as it is possible. We are departing from that and I think it is harmful for us. We should not be blaming enemies for these things.
gumby 3y ago
Bunnie wrote this well by putting the important part right up front: "The request is facially misguided; any restrictions would only serve to reduce American participation in an important emerging technology". This is a problem the USA experienced (and was widely discussed) during the cold war. It's so discouraging to see this self-destructive approach being revived.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
pjmlp 3y ago
End of globalisation is coming, ironically forcing countries to invest into their technology stacks like during the cold war, with plenty of 8 and 16 bit computer clones to chose from.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
chaostheory 3y ago
Bunny’s stance would have been reasonable if someone like Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao was in power, but Xi is different. Not only has Xi blocked the West from accessing China’s domestic market, but Xi has essentially helped end globalism and started decoupling with his foolish wolf warrior diplomatic policy and the belligerent nine dash line. Let’s also not forget about Xi’s invasion plans for Taiwan ie we’re likely headed for war https://youtu.be/plHRRFHZ_f0 https://youtu.be/plHRRFHZ_f0 You cannot ignore those issues if you want people to take your position seriously.
- xtian 3y ago
  How are western companies blocked from accessing China’s domestic market? Because they are obligated to follow local laws? That’s like saying GDPR blocks American companies from operating in Europe.
  - chaostheory 3y ago
    This isn’t a new subject. For instance, both Google and Facebook are not allowed in China despite their past attempts to comply with mercurial and vague CCP laws. https://www.businessinsider.com/major-us-tech-companies-blocked-from-operating-in-china-2019-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/major-us-tech-companies-bloc... I’m sure there are more US companies and industries that are not allowed to compete in China’s domestic market. The GDPR is protectionist legislation for EU companies, but it doesn’t prevent US companies from doing business in the EU. It’s a terrible comparison to the CCP’s outright ban on many US companies.
    - xtian 3y ago
      So how does Microsoft manage it? Bing and other Microsoft properties are accessible in China.
      - chaostheory 3y ago
        Most likely because China relies on Windows? I don’t know and it’s a moot point. All I know is that there has been a large swath of US and other Western companies that are barred from doing business in China. That’s a fact. As to why, it’s likely protectionism for local mainland companies who wouldn’t have been able to compete.
RachelF 3y ago
If China's military use is the concern here, then it is worth remembering that most weapons systems don't contain the most modern chips. CPUs 10 to 20 years old are common.
- brianhorakh 3y ago
  Disagree. Yes- Us Weapons platforms are. This is how the us build pure cold war style "for military use only" tech. The money wasted reinventing the wheel by defense contractors is why Americans will never have affordable healthcare or sustainable social services. China simply doesn't do that afaik, it's civilian and military tech isn't always developed independently. Restated: China blurs the line between military and police state tech. It's tech is frequently multi purpose. Drones, bipedal and quad petal robots, ai/ml applications etc. Are not 10-20 years old. They are running the latest risc-v cores. China being "more socialist" really embraced open source, multi use, drtw. It could be many reasons. I was surprised to discover one the boards an esp32-cam (xtensa core) purchased off aliexpress was originally designed to be used in ccp military/police surveillance applications. I don't know which came first, but the esp32-cam board is so extremely well suited for that specific military application that the entire design and layout of the board made sense to me. Espressif a Shanghai based company now is making both xtensa and risc-v chips.
  - RachelF 3y ago
    Good points.
musicale 3y ago
I imagine both IP and export restrictions on x86 and other processor technology have been instrumental in motivating adoption of RISC-V in China. And I imagine Nvidia export restrictions will accelerate the continued development of alternative technologies for AI/ML.
amatecha 3y ago
https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/11.1.23-riscv-letter.pdf https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites... "Urgent action is needed to prevent U.S. technology and technical know-how from contributing to the PRC’s utilization of this technology." "the United States should build a robust ecosystem for open-source collaboration among the U.S. and our allies while ensuring the PRC is unable to benefit from that work." tfw lawyers don't understand what "open source" means :facepalm:
tamimio 3y ago
I believe the reason is more sinister, it’s a rehearsal to ban RISC-V in the future, so only the backdoor-ed chips like Intel/AMD are used.
- KirillPanov 3y ago
  Please stop shining the light in HN's blind spot; it doesn't like it when you do that.

213 points by vitplister 3y ago

Site is partially hugged to death. It has a copy of a letter that Andrew ‘bunnie’ Huang sent > Regarding Proposed US Restrictions on RISC-V > A bipartisan group of 18 lawmakers in the US Congress have recently amplified a request to the White House and the Secretary of Commerce to place restrictions on Americans working with RISC-V (see also the initial request from the Senate) in order to prevent China from gaining dominance in CPU technology. > The request is facially misguided; any restrictions would only serve to reduce American participation in an important emerging technology, while bolstering ARM’s position as an incumbent near-monopoly provider of embedded CPUs. > When the first report came out, I hoped it was just a blip that would go away, but with the broader bi-partisan group asking for restrictions, I felt I could no longer just stand by and watch: I am an active participant in the RISC-V ecosystem. I’m also subject to US law. > I did the one thing any American can do, which is write a letter summarizing my thoughts on the issue, and sending it to the White House, Department of Commerce, and the relevant members of Congress

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

edflsafoiewq 3y ago

Does anyone know what restrictions have actually been proposed? Media reporting on it is uselessly vague.

BizarroLand 3y ago
Looks like what they want is to stop Americans from collaborating on RISC-V with any PRC company: Oct 6 (Reuters) - In a new front in the U.S.-China tech war, President Joe Biden's administration is facing pressure from some lawmakers to restrict American companies from working on a freely available chip technology widely used in China - a move that could upend how the global technology industry collaborates across borders. At issue is RISC-V, pronounced "risk five," an open-source technology that competes with costly proprietary technology from British semiconductor and software design company Arm Holdings (O9Ty.F). RISC-V can be used as a key ingredient for anything from a smartphone chip to advanced processors for artificial intelligence. Some lawmakers - including two Republican House of Representatives committee chairmen, Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Mark Warner - are urging Biden's administration to take action regarding RISC-V, citing national security grounds. The lawmakers expressed concerns that Beijing is exploiting a culture of open collaboration among American companies to advance its own semiconductor industry, which could erode the current U.S. lead in the chip field and help China modernize its military. Their comments represent the first major effort to put constraints on work by U.S. companies on RISC-V. Representative Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House select committee on China, said in a statement to Reuters that the Commerce Department needs to "require any American person or company to receive an export license prior to engaging with PRC (People's Republic of China) entities on RISC-V technology." Such calls to regulate RISC-V are the latest in the U.S.-China battle over chip technology that escalated last year with sweeping export restrictions that the Biden administration has told China it will update this month. "The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is abusing RISC-V to get around U.S. dominance of the intellectual property needed to design chips. U.S. persons should not be supporting a PRC tech transfer strategy that serves to degrade U.S. export control laws," Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement to Reuters. McCaul said he wants action from the Bureau of Industry and Security, the part of the Commerce Department that oversees export-control regulations, and would pursue legislation if that does not materialize. The bureau "is constantly reviewing the technology landscape and threat environment, and continually assessing how best to apply our export control policies to protect national security and safeguard core technologies," a Commerce Department spokesperson said in a statement. "Communist China is developing open-source chip architecture to dodge our sanctions and grow its chip industry," Rubio said in a statement to Reuters. "If we don't broaden our export controls to include this threat, China will one day surpass us as the global leader in chip design." "I fear that our export-control laws are not equipped to deal with the challenge of open-source software - whether in advanced semiconductor designs like RISC-V or in the area of AI - and a dramatic paradigm shift is needed," Warner said in a statement to Reuters. RISC-V is overseen by a Swiss-based nonprofit foundation that coordinates efforts among for-profit companies to develop the technology. The RISC-V technology came from labs at the University of California, Berkeley, and later benefited from funding by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Its creators have compared it to Ethernet, USB and even the internet, which are freely available and draw on contributions from around the world to make innovation faster and cheaper.
- whelp_24 3y ago
  Are these senators invested in ARM?
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    These senators believe the Earth is 6000 years old. Their worldview doesn't get any more rational from there.
    - germandiago 3y ago
      I am not american but I would assume this is just mocking.
      - CamperBob2 3y ago
        It's not.
      - burnished 3y ago
        You would want that to be the case yeah. The search terms would be 'marco rubio' and 'young earther', I believe.
        CamperBob2 3y ago
        Not to mention, second in line to the Presidency: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mike-johnson-son-monitor-porn-intake-covenant-eyes-1234870634/?ICID=ref_fark https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mike-joh...
        BizarroLand 3y ago
        Third. The VP is second in line
        CamperBob2 3y ago
bunnie 3y ago
The concern is that the restrictions would follow the pattern of existing rules around semiconductor equipment and fabricated chips [1]. They are fairly broad and stipulate that US persons cannot transfer technology to any company on an entity list. iirc there was a clarification to the rule that also put a burden on US persons to confirm that they aren't working with a trading front or shell company for the listed entities, which makes any interaction potentially hazardous, because how are you even supposed to check for that? Note that violations of these rules can "include up to 20 years of imprisonment and up to $1 million in fines per violation, or both" [2]. And the use of "US persons" language means that it's not just companies, it's individual developers too. If you read the text of the rules, they restrict any kind of technology transfer to these companies. In the case of selling fabrication equipment, that's...fairly clear cut. Don't sell stuff to people on the list, and your deal was probably a few million dollars anyways so you can afford lawyers to research if you're dealing with a shell company. But the concern is for RISC-V "technology transfer", what happens if you push to a git repository, and...someone from one of these entities pulls your commits? Are you now liable? What if you give a lecture on RISC-V, and someone from one of these entities was in attendance? Or perhaps you're in charge of crafting an IP strategy for your SoC company. If you pick RISC-V, the ambiguous and changing rules around who you can license your products to is problematic; a client you have today could end up being banned tomorrow. Whereas if you license an ARM core, you don't have to worry about going to jail. It then becomes a no-brainer to just license the ARM core. Basically, the concern is they will copy/paste the existing rules that are somewhat more tightly confined because they apply to atoms, but instead insert language referring to bits and ideas. [1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/10/13/2022-21658/implementation-of-additional-export-controls-certain-advanced-computing-and-semiconductor https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/10/13/2022-21... [2] https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/enforcement/oee/penalties https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/enforcement/oee/penalties
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
Mostly ones that defy constitutional guarantees of free speech.

deutschepost 3y ago

Wasn’t RISC-V developed in the US? And the first company to produce chips with this ISA, SiFive is US based too. Why would it make sense to ban it in the US? They literally invented it.

SllX 3y ago
It doesn’t. Right now we’re having an anti-PRC moment. There are good and intelligent ways to have that moment, and there bad and stupid ways to have that moment. This is one of the latter, but Congress is a deliberative body within a free democracy so we’re going to see all of it.
wmf 3y ago
The concern is that open-sourcing processor design knowledge will create a "reverse brain drain", allowing other countries (especially the boogeyman China) to catch up. It's nonsense in a globalized world.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
This is basically ARM lobbying to hamper their challenger. There is no legitimate reason for it. (That doesn't mean we don't still need to fight it.)
- 0xDEF 3y ago
  Something to look out for in recent years are cultist grassroot investors who organize on Reddit and Twitter to influence politicians to do something that is favorable to their stock and harass journalists and YouTubers who report critically and harm their stock. r/TeslaInvestors and r/AMD_Stock are some of the worst. I can easily imagine some in the latter organizing to get RISC-V banned in the US.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    Eh. RISC-V isn't really competing with AMD64, which is high performance processors that can natively run x86 binaries, neither of which RISC-V would do any time soon. And if there were they would most likely be made by AMD, who would then make money selling them. The loser from RISC-V is clearly ARM because it's not nearly as hard to produce a low-power processor with mid-level performance, which is the core of ARM's market but RISC-V allows the vendors to avoid paying for the ARM license. And unlike x86, most existing ARM software isn't distributed as third party binaries tied to a particular architecture and could easily be recompiled for something else.

error9348 3y ago

Letter in question https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/11.1.23-riscv-letter.pdf https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites...

bitwize 3y ago

Oh noes! The Chinese are using some tech. Better prevent American companies from competing with them!

TinkersW 3y ago

The fact that RISC-V jumped to Switzerland after being funded by the US during its development makes me inclined to say screw RISC-V. It also makes RISC-V foreign just as the author complains that ARM is foreign. I think placing restrictions on Americans working with PRC on RISC-V related stuff is a pretty reasonable thing to do.

sschueller 3y ago
Let's ban AI research too and be left behind. /s I see this as short sighted anti China fear mongering but China is now at a point where is can invotate itself with out the help of "western" tech.
- whelp_24 3y ago
  I mean Altman is working on that one...
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  Let's sanction China from using Microsoft or Apple products, forcing them to turn to open source operating systems like Linux, and then let's make Linux illegal, ensuring that only government-approved, sufficiently-backdoored corporate operating systems are allowed! Any responsible, patriotic citizen should be onboard with that!
ertian 3y ago
This makes the move to Switzerland look prescient.
colinsane 3y ago
> The fact that RISC-V jumped to Switzerland after being funded by the US during its development makes me inclined to say screw RISC-V. are you perhaps referring to some specific company in the RISC-V space? or are you actually saying "damn, foreign actors embraced an idea we originated, guess i've gotta flip positions and decide the idea of an open ISA is bad now"?
- 3y ago

kmeisthax 3y ago

China should stop stealing our IP and create their own technology wait no not like that

OhMeadhbh 3y ago
Those darn'd Chinese training a bunch of engineers, participating in a global industry, producing a product at rock-bottom prices and then not forgetting everything they had to learn to help the rest of the world make chips! Dang Them!
- hangonhn 3y ago
  Remember when we were all about global free trade and supply side economics and consumer surpluses? I guess it's no fun when someone else does it to us. Sarcasm aside, I think we are now realizing that talking about supply side without considering the demand side (i.e. workers who can afford even these abundant goods) is going to be very detrimental in the long run.
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    Not just "very detrimental in the long run" - more like "actively fueling far-right fascists in the very short term". The working class does not care who promises them revenge, or even if that revenge is targeted at their oppressors, as long as revenge is eventually provided by someone.
    - OhMeadhbh 3y ago
      I don't disagree with you about breeding fascists now. Though I wonder, in a few years after we do more Trump and things fail to get better, and then we swing back the other way and elect the ghost of Bernie Sanders (cause I really don't know anyone on the left who could impress the disaffected middle-American electorate.) What then? I guess that's why the far right wing is trying to take over before we have to have elections again. I'm just curious if swinging back and forth between left and right wing isn't more destructive than just right wing.

RetroTechie 3y ago

It's amazing that the move of RISC-V Foundation to Switzerland (as RISC-V International) was actually called for. Even more amazing is US lawmakers continuing to try & shoot the US in the foot. RISC-V is now globally developed, that ship has sailed. Same for products based on it. The US can't prevent its 'proliferation'. Only reduce the degree to which US entities are part of, and profit from that. Are US lawmakers that dumb? (ok I guess that's a rhetorical question).

andrewflnr 3y ago
The practical question is, do US lawmakers believe their voters are that dumb? (Mostly yes)
- dmvdoug 3y ago
  Nah, they really are this uninformed for the most part (there are notable exceptions of course). Story time! I went to law school in DC. One of my classmates worked as a staffer in the office of a prominent (leadership-level) congressperson (she was from his district). She had also done an internship with the UN. This congressperson had made public statements about defunding the UN and blah blah blah. He took her out to lunch one day and asked her to explain what the UN was and how it worked in the 30 minutes they had so he could field questions he was getting about his public statements.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- bluGill 3y ago
  You don't have to fall back to that. It isn't possible to know all the issues facing national attention. Someone puts in a good/scary story about something and it is really hard to see why that story is wrong. Often the story isn't even wrong, it is just not the complete picture and the evils of what the story misses out on are even worse. There are a bit over 500 people with power in DC, they cannot possibly debate all the possible issues that come up. China learning from US contributions to Risc-v are not a good thing. However the obvious proposed solution wouldn't stop China from learning (it might delay them a few months, but they have plenty of smart engineers who can figure this out), and so will harm the US more.

olalonde 3y ago

It blows my mind that the US keeps treating China, its biggest trade partner, as an enemy. There is no way that China would ever initiate a war against the US. It feels like, if anything, this insistence on treating China as an enemy increases risk for the US.

trynumber9 3y ago
The assumption is that they will initiate a real war against Taiwan at some point. The result of that assumption is to prepare by slowly phasing out trade where possible rather than waiting for it all to happen at once when they do invade.
- QuarterReptile 3y ago
  And the result of that preparation is that both sides are less entangled with one another and thus (theoretically) more ready to be at war with one another. Anyway, the chain of who-started-it doesn't have a first link. There is no value-free way to assess it all..
  - TinkersW 3y ago
    Repeatedly implying you will attack Taiwan is a pretty clear first link.
    - olalonde 3y ago
      Taiwan isn't a US state as far as I know. The US doesn't even recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state.
      - throwaway626 3y ago
        The US has a clear interest in preventing reunification with the mainland, regardless of the island’s legal status.
      - QuarterReptile 3y ago

zelon88 3y ago

So correct me if I'm wrong, but you'll still be allowed to push public commits to a public RISC-V related repo, but you'll need a special government license to resolve issues opened by anyone related to China?

phendrenad2 3y ago
That's my assumption as well
Qem 3y ago
People will need to publish commits in book form again, like the Phil Zimmerman did with PGP, to have freedom of expression. See: https://philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/BookPreface.html https://philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/BookPreface.html I'm picturing RISC-V processors being sold in boxes that are actually small bible-like books with ornate binding, full of paper printed source code, with small hollows inside where the chips fit.
hangonhn 3y ago
> you'll need a special government license to resolve issues opened by anyone related to China? Yes but that's very similar to how the EUV "ban" works too. As long as you can get a license it's fine but getting the license is expected to be very hard and probably represents a big enough of a risk that you can't base your business around that. So effectively it is a ban. The license thing does give the executive branch a good deal of leverage when negotiating with China. I think this is likely what the US is really after anyways. It's a pretty hard nosed renegotiation of the existing relationship by both sides.

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

When discussing a highly technical issue such as this you have to be careful to use the correct terminology: This is some dumb shit.

lolinder 3y ago

The numbers aren't large, but it's worth noting that 7 out of 18 signatories of the original letter received donatations from Intel's PAC in 2022 [0]: Mike Gallagher: $6000 Marco Rubio: $2500 Haley Stevens: $2000 Carlos Gimenez: $5000 Darin LaHood: $7000 Andy Barr: $2000 Ashley Hinson: $10000 Total: $34500 [0] https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/intel-corp/C00125641/candidate-recipients/2022?t1-search=Marco&t0-search=Hinson https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs...

rany_ 3y ago
I sure hope they aren't that cheap.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Zigurd 3y ago
  Buying politicians, other than the ones that are in the headlines every day, is astonishingly cheap.
- lolinder 3y ago
  As I understand it, the donation is not the price of legislation, it's the price to get your foot in the door for additional lobbying efforts later. If a lobbyist connected to a donor requests a meeting, they get it, and if the lobbyist can then make a convincing enough case (preferably legally but sometimes otherwise) they can get action in their favor.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bsder 3y ago
  Oh, that gave me a good laugh. When you think of US politicians: think of the guy who owns the biggest used car dealership in Podunkville, Midwest. That's your average US politician. Generally: the scummiest, griftiest jerk who happened to get lucky. Generally by inheritance as building the business takes too much energy to screw around with national politics. Not somebody smart. Not somebody moral. Think SBF but no education and knowledge whatsoever. Is that person that cheap? Yah, sure, you betcha.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

Headlines so weird, you have to click... I was thinking to myself, there's no way that someone's acting like it's 1988 again, and we have to embargo this from leaving the country for fear Saddam Hussein will use it to construct a 50 megaflops supercomputer with which to pre-calculate artillery firing solution tables. Then I clicked, and it really is that dumb. Way to go Congress.

tcgv 3y ago

While I strongly agree with the blog post and letter, I believe the letter would be more effective if it spent more time explaining how the proposed restrictions will most likely backfire, i.e., put the US in a less advantageous position to defend its dominance in CPU technology with regard to China. No politician or regulator would like to be labelled as someone who favored a foreign competitor country.

m12k 3y ago
"Any barrier for US persons’ participation will only slow American progress in developing and adopting this technology. It will have an effect opposite of that intended by lawmakers." Sounds like the letter/blog post already does make this point?
- tcgv 3y ago
  It does. However, if this point were more central to the letter, it would have a greater impact on the reader. For instance, explicitly demonstrating the numerous ways in which American progress could be impeded, explaining how China and Chinese business owners could get ahead in RISC-V technology, and maybe drawing an analogy with the restrictions imposed on federal funding for stem cell research that affected the US in the global landscape [1], among other examples. Frequently, politicians prioritize their personal agendas and interests, so it's essential to thoroughly address those aspects. PS: I'm not a US national, so I'm only analyzing the topic rather than engaging in it. [1] https://hsci.harvard.edu/impact-federal-policy-global-competition-stem-cell-research https://hsci.harvard.edu/impact-federal-policy-global-compet...
RachelF 3y ago
Sadly, the letter would be more effective if it included a large "donation" check, for an amount greater than those Intel is writing.
- skyyler 3y ago
  Isn't this practice called corruption in other countries? How is this legal?

mschuster91 3y ago

> This has long been a trade-off of American innovation philosophy: we can freely exercise our First Amendment rights to share ideas, creating a vibrant intellectual exchange, even at the risk of others benefiting from reading our textbooks, journals and patents. Sometimes, we have to re-evaluate our positions. We cannot risk supplying our enemies with stuff they can turn around and use as weapons against ourselves any more. The sooner broader society wakes up and realizes that we, as collective Western nations, are at war, the better. It may not be a "conventional" war yet, but that doesn't make it less dangerous!

krispyfi 3y ago
Have you ever read "The Player of Games" by Iain M. Banks? We won't win by allowing the enemy to make us more like them.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > We won't win by allowing the enemy to make us more like them. I agree on that when it comes to a ton of the "anti terror" measures introduced after 9/11 because these are plain bullshit that don't do any objective good, other than annoy passengers. But regarding high tech capability? Not at all. We have to do everything we can to impede China's progress there, at all costs - because the cost of a Chinese victory would be outright catastrophic.
  - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
    If what separates the status quo from Chinese victory is having RISC-V chips, we already lost. (And spoiler: modern technology won't give them victory over the West. Not even close.)
    - germandiago 3y ago
      I think there are far ways in which we are destroying ourselves by not focusing in many of the important aspects AND not sticking to our values. If we promote free market (more or less, nothing is pure), freedom of speech and many others as those should be respected as much as it is possible. We are departing from that and I think it is harmful for us. We should not be blaming enemies for these things.

gumby 3y ago

Bunnie wrote this well by putting the important part right up front: "The request is facially misguided; any restrictions would only serve to reduce American participation in an important emerging technology". This is a problem the USA experienced (and was widely discussed) during the cold war. It's so discouraging to see this self-destructive approach being revived.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

pjmlp 3y ago

End of globalisation is coming, ironically forcing countries to invest into their technology stacks like during the cold war, with plenty of 8 and 16 bit computer clones to chose from.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

chaostheory 3y ago

Bunny’s stance would have been reasonable if someone like Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao was in power, but Xi is different. Not only has Xi blocked the West from accessing China’s domestic market, but Xi has essentially helped end globalism and started decoupling with his foolish wolf warrior diplomatic policy and the belligerent nine dash line. Let’s also not forget about Xi’s invasion plans for Taiwan ie we’re likely headed for war https://youtu.be/plHRRFHZ_f0 https://youtu.be/plHRRFHZ_f0 You cannot ignore those issues if you want people to take your position seriously.

xtian 3y ago
How are western companies blocked from accessing China’s domestic market? Because they are obligated to follow local laws? That’s like saying GDPR blocks American companies from operating in Europe.
- chaostheory 3y ago
  This isn’t a new subject. For instance, both Google and Facebook are not allowed in China despite their past attempts to comply with mercurial and vague CCP laws. https://www.businessinsider.com/major-us-tech-companies-blocked-from-operating-in-china-2019-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/major-us-tech-companies-bloc... I’m sure there are more US companies and industries that are not allowed to compete in China’s domestic market. The GDPR is protectionist legislation for EU companies, but it doesn’t prevent US companies from doing business in the EU. It’s a terrible comparison to the CCP’s outright ban on many US companies.
  - xtian 3y ago
    So how does Microsoft manage it? Bing and other Microsoft properties are accessible in China.
    - chaostheory 3y ago
      Most likely because China relies on Windows? I don’t know and it’s a moot point. All I know is that there has been a large swath of US and other Western companies that are barred from doing business in China. That’s a fact. As to why, it’s likely protectionism for local mainland companies who wouldn’t have been able to compete.

RachelF 3y ago

If China's military use is the concern here, then it is worth remembering that most weapons systems don't contain the most modern chips. CPUs 10 to 20 years old are common.

brianhorakh 3y ago
Disagree. Yes- Us Weapons platforms are. This is how the us build pure cold war style "for military use only" tech. The money wasted reinventing the wheel by defense contractors is why Americans will never have affordable healthcare or sustainable social services. China simply doesn't do that afaik, it's civilian and military tech isn't always developed independently. Restated: China blurs the line between military and police state tech. It's tech is frequently multi purpose. Drones, bipedal and quad petal robots, ai/ml applications etc. Are not 10-20 years old. They are running the latest risc-v cores. China being "more socialist" really embraced open source, multi use, drtw. It could be many reasons. I was surprised to discover one the boards an esp32-cam (xtensa core) purchased off aliexpress was originally designed to be used in ccp military/police surveillance applications. I don't know which came first, but the esp32-cam board is so extremely well suited for that specific military application that the entire design and layout of the board made sense to me. Espressif a Shanghai based company now is making both xtensa and risc-v chips.
- RachelF 3y ago
  Good points.

musicale 3y ago

I imagine both IP and export restrictions on x86 and other processor technology have been instrumental in motivating adoption of RISC-V in China. And I imagine Nvidia export restrictions will accelerate the continued development of alternative technologies for AI/ML.

amatecha 3y ago

https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/11.1.23-riscv-letter.pdf https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites... "Urgent action is needed to prevent U.S. technology and technical know-how from contributing to the PRC’s utilization of this technology." "the United States should build a robust ecosystem for open-source collaboration among the U.S. and our allies while ensuring the PRC is unable to benefit from that work." tfw lawyers don't understand what "open source" means :facepalm:

tamimio 3y ago

I believe the reason is more sinister, it’s a rehearsal to ban RISC-V in the future, so only the backdoor-ed chips like Intel/AMD are used.

KirillPanov 3y ago
Please stop shining the light in HN's blind spot; it doesn't like it when you do that.