News on China's scientific and technological development.

[taxiya]

Given this situation, I think China/Bytedance should actually refuse to sell Tiktok USA by the September 15th deadline.
Then it is highly likely that Trump will have to delay or cancel the forced sale of Tiktok USA.

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China the state does not need to refuse or block the sell now or ever. It is enough by the revised regulation to block any worthy substances in TikTok to be sold to US. So I don't think China need to do anything more except just disprove any deal whenever it is submitted for approval. Remember the Qualcomm acquisition of NXP? China basically dragged the process for so long that eventually Qualcomm and NXP gave up the deal, in that case China act by not doing anything.

I think ByteDance should not refuse to sell, what is the point of refusing something when you know it is not going to happen? Refusing, some shareholders will blame ByteDance, pretending to proceed, shareholders would blame Trump for the robbery.

 

[taxiya]

No one seems to have reported that Trump has now banned CSG or China Shipping Group, which is the merger of CSSC and CSIC, but who cares I can't imagine what kind of US technology large Chinese commercial ships would still have. This is mainly a symbolic and toothless sanction.

Isn't the ban aimed at forbidding American companies or individuals to use CSG's transportation service rather than preventing American tech into CSG?

If that so, Trump has to expect China blocking any US transportation companies to benefit from the shipping demands left by CSGs.

 

[taxiya]

If they are building base stations in large number, ASIC is better than FPGA. Cheaper, uses less power, generates less heat. In fact, I assume Huawei and Ericsson's base stations use ASIC. Huawei's huge numbers, more than 50,000 base stations, that will more than justify ASIC. FPGA is only for applications with small numbers or custom applications.

Nokia's use or gamble of FPGA on base stations cost the company.

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Using FPGA is like buying an expensive car whose features you don't end up using. Maybe all you need is a Toyota Corolla, not a Lexus.

Yes, in big volume ASIC is superior than FPGA as you said. FPGA on the other hand is quick to market for new features. Whether or not moving the feature from FPGA to ASIC depends on how long time it takes for that feature to be replaced by later improvement.

The safe approach is to use both for different parts of the product. Nokia is the only one taking the risky approach, but that is understandable as Nokia is half American company as Xilinx.

 

[galvatron]

Isn't the ban aimed at forbidding American companies or individuals to use CSG's transportation service rather than preventing American tech into CSG?

If that so, Trump has to expect China blocking any US transportation companies to benefit from the shipping demands left by CSGs.

China should also ban all US shipping companies.

 

[machupicu]

The subtle wrinkle in this analysis is that switching to domestic fabs, in a situation where access to both foreign fabs and foreign EDAs are blocked, will also likely facilitate catch up development for domestic EDAs.

btw, how would US check/certify that a line meets the rules stated by Commerce dept? If suppose a line is at SMIC, would they send a letter to BIS, which then sends a team to visit? Same if a line is at Huawei's building?

On EDA, after the ban it was mentioned Huawei can still use it but not allowed to get updates. Also after the ban, news mentioned many municipalities in China rushed to buy EDAs from Cadence and Synopsis.

China EDAs should do well, as they have 1 more year to fine tune.. but one way is to design using both US and Chinese EDAs, and do lots of (more) simulations on US one, but the final one is of course on Chinese EDA. Is that workable, too?

 

[Tam]

Isn't the ban aimed at forbidding American companies or individuals to use CSG's transportation service rather than preventing American tech into CSG?

If that so, Trump has to expect China blocking any US transportation companies to benefit from the shipping demands left by CSGs.

CSG is the ship building group. Not COSCO which is the ship running group. It forbids US technology to be used for Chinese shipbuilding, like as if there still exists in the US that matters, since US has exited much of the commercial ship building business many years ago except for Jones Acts and Great Lakes ships.

Banning COSCO would be stupid as it would greatly raise shipping rates between Asia and the US but around the world.

Banning American companies from buying CSG ships would also be stupid, given that Foremost Group, who is run by Mitch McConnell's father in law, buys ships from China and is heavily dependent on US-China shipping route.

 

[Tam]

Yes, in big volume ASIC is superior than FPGA as you said. FPGA on the other hand is quick to market for new features. Whether or not moving the feature from FPGA to ASIC depends on how long time it takes for that feature to be replaced by later improvement.

The safe approach is to use both for different parts of the product. Nokia is the only one taking the risky approach, but that is understandable as Nokia is half American company as Xilinx.

FPGA is only good for a new product or one that exists in small quantities. The problem of an FPGA is that it is over engineered. It is like this collection of different knives and screwdriver heads in a chain that you use as a tool, but you only need a box cutter for the job. When you have identified and isolated the job clearly and know what you want to do, its better to do a dedicated ASIC, use only a design with a specific purpose and mission. Its smaller, cheaper, uses less power, more reliable, than using a chip with the vast majority of its transistors unused, just consuming power, making more heat, and eventually break down faster.

You don't need cutting edge FPGA with say, AI features on a base station. Its an utter waste of money. In fact I am not sure what you need an FPGA with AI features for. It just seems these companies need to make money by creating solutions to questions no one asks.

 

[machupicu]

With 460 million monthly active users, 33 million in Europe alone, and combined global downloads exceeding 184 billion in the first half, Huawei's AppGallery is now the world's third-largest app store, with over 5,000 apps being added per month. Its global base of registered developers has exceeded 1.6 million, up 76 percent from the year earlier.

Huawei has also launched its Petal Search service, teaming up with third-party search partners including Europe's top search engines Qwant and Yandex. Since its launch in June, Petal Search has attracted more than 1 million European users, according to Ji.

Huawei now employs more than 8,500 people across 11 countries in West Europe, and 14,000 in the whole of Europe, the company said. It has two regional headquarters located in Poland and in Germany, as well as 23 research sites.

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[machupicu]

Huawei sanctions will destroy US chip industry

New ban on Chinese purchases of high-end US chips will ultimately hurt America more than China
By DAVID P. GOLDMAN SEPTEMBER 4, 2020

Next month, Chinese leaders will ratify a plan to dominate the world’s semiconductor industry by 2025, in response to US restrictions on Chinese imports of high-end computer chips made with American equipment.

Directed against China’s telecom equipment makers Huawei and ZTE, the new US regulations published in July stop Huawei from producing its house-designed chips at Taiwan’s state-of-the-art fabricators.

Computer chips, the core technology of the digital age, are a top priority in China’s proposed US$1.4 trillion, five-year plan to leapfrog the US. Chinese initiatives include:

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[Tam]

Some interesting points here.

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Some highlights:

AMEC’s etch system is used in TSMC’s 5nm fab and is developing a high aspect ratio etcher and staircase etcher for 128-layer 3D NAND manufacturing at YMTC. Other customers include SMIC, Huahong, and Huali.

Whereas NAURA sold 8 etch systems and 6 CVD and ALD deposition systems to Chinese semiconductor companies, the company sold 34 furnaces in 2019 as well as 16 cleaning systems.

What about technology capabilities of Chinese equipment companies? According to my analysis, NAURA has the capabilities of producing chips at 5nm, comparable to those of AMAT and peers. NAURA is making equipment with 14nm capabilities but is developing etchers and deposition equipment for 7nm and 5nm nodes.