[HN Gopher] Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced...
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Two startups tried to catch up to makers of advanced computer
chips, and failed
Author : prostoalex
Score : 14 points
Date : 2022-01-10 01:29 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| genericone wrote:
| For a somewhat biased take on the situation, Asianometry on
| Youtube talked about Hongxin last year, this guy's choice of
| topic coverage is all over the map, but focuses on Asia, Tech,
| and Politics:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZSvDYDfd78
| pinewurst wrote:
| https://archive.is/FLzAL
| n7pdx wrote:
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Economical and performant chip and jet turbine production are two
| areas where China can't really take any shortcuts. They have to
| put in a lot of time and resources to rediscover closely guarded
| secrets that are almost impossible to reverse engineer. They are
| dumping in the resources, so I'm sure they will eventually get
| there, but it might be a few decades (in both fields, they can
| already do performant or economical, just not both at the same
| time).
| bfung wrote:
| I suspect some or most of this secret sauce is more like
| institutional knowledge and not one single person knows how the
| whole system works (to produce high quality chips at scale). Or
| maybe there IS one person, but that's the CEO/founder, haha.
|
| Regardless, it's similar to software companies claiming to run
| agile, but always reverting to the "get it done, waterfall
| deadline" mode. It takes good effort and detailed knowledge of
| pitfalls to avoid to actually make a less intuitive, but more
| repeatable and productive process work. (Agile's been around
| for over 10years and people still don't do good versions well)
| bvaldivielso wrote:
| Interesting. What about hiring people from the leading
| companies? Isn't that how a lot of knowledge transfer happens
| in all industries? Are non-competes enforceable
| internationally?
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| I doubt it is that easy thing to do. What would motivate some
| key researcher to move from USA/Europe to China to work on
| stuff that they have already done instead of exploring new
| frontiers? Hardly any money can buy that. Ego? Maybe few
| people from the wishlist will take a new job title, but you
| need the entire list.
| carabiner wrote:
| Stuff like this isn't just trade secrets, in the US it's
| often ITAR-controlled and requires a security clearance.
| There are CFD algorithms that are classified. If you possess
| this information and plan to move to (or even visit) China, I
| imagine US immigration will look at you very closely and not
| simply allow you to leave to go work for Chengdu Aerospace
| Corporation.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Interesting. What about hiring people from the leading
| companies? Isn't that how a lot of knowledge transfer happens
| in all industries?
|
| Maybe it's not that easy. I have no knowledge of
| semiconductor manufacturing (let alone advanced semiconductor
| manufacturing), but it strikes me as one of those areas that
| might have thousands of very specialized crazy hard problems
| that all need to be solved just right to get things working.
| If you hire away some guy from a leading company, at best he
| might have a thousandth of that company's solution (and maybe
| that thousandth of a solution is only valuable in a path-
| dependent context with all the other solutions that leading
| company followed).
|
| > Are non-competes enforceable internationally?
|
| Doubt it. Though I suppose in some cases disclosing trade
| secrets for advanced technology my violate other laws.
| bsedlm wrote:
| > They have to put in a lot of time and resources to rediscover
| closely guarded secrets that are almost impossible to reverse
| engineer
|
| yes, they have to repeat all that work, they have to solve all
| those solved problems again because companies that solved the
| problems won't share their solutions.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| Why would a company share its trade secrets? It's one of the
| few differentiators left to most companies. Not to mention
| the national security arguments.
| hguant wrote:
| >they have to solve all those solved problems again because
| companies that solved the problems won't share their
| solutions.
|
| ...because those solutions are the company's competitive
| advantage that China has tried to steal for years on end now?
| Not to mention in many instances those 'solutions' are owned
| by or access controlled by the parent country of said
| company, many of which view China as at the least a bad faith
| actor, and at the worst an inevitable opponent?
|
| Pretending China hasn't engaged in the world's largest
| industrial espionage campaign over the last two decades, and
| then victim blaming the companies involved for not "sharing
| their solutions" with China is a perverse form of logic.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Not surprised: $2.3B is chump change in semiconductor
| manufacturing especially if you're starting from scratch. Double
| that, add a zero, and wait 5-7 more years.
| chx wrote:
| So 50B? That's nowhere near what you need. Last July news broke
| Intel is spending a _hundred billion_ on new fabs and they have
| all the R &D already -- and own 15% of ASML outright.
|
| You need to catch up with ASML _and_ TSMC at the same time.
| vmception wrote:
| I have met so many people that think _their_ semiconductor
| manufacturing needs are exempt from the supply chain issue or
| backlog.
|
| Typically they all say "We are using this _other_ nanometer size,
| and so thats not where the backlog is "
|
| is there any truth to that statement?
| nwiswell wrote:
| Yes.
|
| The "size" you are talking about is the "process node". It's
| basically a shorthand for how large the transistors are. These
| nodes are not fungible, once a chip is designed and a mask set
| is taped out it must be fabricated on that specific process
| node. Even if you have a chip designed on an older/larger node,
| it cannot be fabricated on a newer/smaller node without
| significant expense and delay.
|
| Older nodes are generally in lower demand, although strictly
| speaking they are a tighter supply bottleneck, since nobody is
| incentivized to build fabs at older process nodes.
|
| But the picture is even more complicated than this. Virtually
| all semiconductor fabs specialize in certain kinds of chips.
| Even at roughly the same process node, a DRAM fab cannot easily
| retool to make NAND, a NAND fab cannot easily retool to make
| logic (CPU, GPU, FPGA...), a logic fab cannot easily retool to
| make MEMS or image sensors, and so on.
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