China's chip capabilities just 3 years behind TSMC, teardown shows

Mellow12 , 7 hours ago

Golf clap.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64206950

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-Spotlight/Samsung-races-to-guard-its-secrets-as-China-rivals-close-in

https://www.axios.com/2018/05/24/china-intellectual-property-ip-theft-trade-war

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-03-15/inside-the-chinese-boom-in-corporate-espionage

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jul/22/germany-china-industrial-espionage

Korkki , 13 hours ago

And that’s basically nothing since generational performance improvements have long since gotten into diminishing returns territory.

Buffalox , 8 hours ago (edited 3 hours ago)

The most significant part is probably that getting that extra bit of performance and power savings from a new process is where the most money is.
But for China wanting independence from sanctions, this will probably cover 90% of their needs, and in a few years, they may have caught up completely.
I think most people fail to appreciate how much of a powerhouse China is when they commit serious ressources to something.

KillingAndKindess , 6 hours ago

One factor to keep in mind though, is human productivity only happens at that kind of speed if they (the citizens involved) feel like they are getting something back from the process. And Chinese disillusionment with their own economy is growing.

Buffalox , 2 hours ago

Replacing enthusiasm with desperation is far from sure to slow this down.
Both are strong motivators.

YeetPics , 1 hour ago

It’s remarkably easy to build something someone else has built before.

I don’t have faith China’s factories will lead the charge at going beyond what has already been done, just that they will reach a financial parity with the west.

Buffalox , 1 hour ago (edited 1 hour ago)

There is nothing remarkably easy with making a good 7nm chip.
But you know what is remarkably easy by comparison?
That’s sending a man to the moon. The process of making modern chips are way harder to develop, than the technology for a manned mission to the moon.

What makes you think China won’t beat TSMC? When TSMC once was a newcomer too, that nobody thought would ever beat IBM, DEC, Sun, AMD and definitely not Intel.

What’s the difference between TSMC beating everybody else, and China with about 60 times the ressources doing the same to TSMC? I know TSMC had help early on, but China has long since surpassed those initial stages.

This attitude that China can never beat the west is naive, and it’s potentially destructive, as it grossly underestimates a rising economy, with a population more than 4 times bigger than their main rival.

NeptuneOrbit , 4 hours ago

Yield and volume are also very important factors.