Chinese semiconductor industry

I will give you more examples this time in military technology. Japan produced the first fighter aircraft which used carbon composites (Mitsubishi F-2). They produced the first fighter aircraft with an AESA radar (again the Mitsubishi F-2). They produced the first air to air missile with an AESA radar seeker (the AAM-4 missile). These are all hallmarks of the supposed US "ubertech" of 5th generation aircraft in case you did not notice. The US basically purchases composite panels from Toray in Japan and uses them in their aircraft and then they are the supposed innovators in composite aircraft manufacturing technology. Saying that Japan does not invent anything is really short sighted.
Americans are better at selling things which sometimes they did not invent in the first place. That is why they even coin words like "innovation" ala Bill Gates. Wherein it does not matter who came up with the idea, or who made it work first, what matters is who sold it to the masses first. Typical US merchant thinking. Does this seem to you like the thinking of someone who is a de facto scientific leader?

OLED screen technology is another example of something which was basically developed in Japan and South Korea. The Japanese (Sony) made the first commercially viable product, but the South Koreans (Samsung) were the ones to make the first commercial mass market product.

Mind you the US does come up with a lot of interesting things and they do have decent researchers. But a lot of it is transplants and imports.

With regards to Intel, if you are talking about 3D XPoint aka Optane, it is an interesting idea that Intel had been working for decades. It used to be called Ovonics memory. As in Stanford R. Ovshinsky the guy who invented amorphous materials as used in CD-RW, amorphous silicon solar panels, and LiMH batteries. A quite talented guy who unfortunately saw a lot of his inventions stalled by investors until his patents ran out. But these kinds of phase-change materials, as interesting as they are, aren't something you will use to make processor logic.

That is why Intel is losing to AMD in CPU performance. Just look at the latest Zen 3 core benchmarks. AMD uses TSMC to manufacture its chips. Intel used to be the leading manufacturer at one point but no more.

gelgoog said:

I will give you more examples this time in military technology. Japan produced the first fighter aircraft which used carbon composites (Mitsubishi F-2). They produced the first fighter aircraft with an AESA radar (again the Mitsubishi F-2). They produced the first air to air missile with an AESA radar seeker (the AAM-4 missile). These are all hallmarks of the supposed US "ubertech" of 5th generation aircraft in case you did not notice. The US basically purchases composite panels from Toray in Japan and uses them in their aircraft and then they are the supposed innovators in composite aircraft manufacturing technology. Saying that Japan does not invent anything is really short sighted.
Americans are better at selling things which sometimes they did not invent in the first place. That is why they even coin words like "innovation" ala Bill Gates. Wherein it does not matter who came up with the idea, or who made it work first, what matters is who sold it to the masses first. Typical US merchant thinking. Does this seem to you like the thinking of someone who is a de facto scientific leader?

OLED screen technology is another example of something which was basically developed in Japan and South Korea. The Japanese (Sony) made the first commercially viable product, but the South Koreans (Samsung) were the ones to make the first commercial mass market product.

Mind you the US does come up with a lot of interesting things and they do have decent researchers. But a lot of it is transplants and imports.
There is an interesting interview with the YF-23 designers on Youtube. You should look it up.

Click to expand...

I agree. I'm not denying that Japan and SK has made any inventions. I'm just saying comparatively, the US has had more inventions, ie. computers, cell phones, transistors, internet, airplanes, nuclear bomb etc.

Maybe it because the US is a bigger country? Or maybe they had a head start? or Maybe culturally Americans are more willing to take risks?

I don't know for sure. It's probably a combination. My opinion, Koreans and Japanese work very hard in school and on average are better than Americans at science and math. But they are lacking in something that I can't readily identify.

free_6ix9ine said:

I agree. I'm not denying that Japan and SK has made any inventions. I'm just saying comparatively, the US has had more inventions, ie. computers, cell phones, transistors, internet, airplanes, nuclear bomb etc.

Maybe it because the US is a bigger country? Or maybe they had a head start? or Maybe culturally Americans are more willing to take risks?

I don't know for sure. It's probably a combination. My opinion, Koreans and Japanese work very hard in school and on average are better than Americans at science and math. But they are lacking in something that I can't readily identify.

Click to expand...

The US population is several times higher than S.Korea and Japan combined. The US also benefit immensely from attracting a lot of talented people from around the world. Jewish immigrants from all over Europe in the 20th century basically brought the US its superpower status. Genius visa and so on and so on. Intel, AMD, nVidia ... founded, run, and innovating on pretty much half foreign talent.

I'm not saying US is itself incapable without all those advantages (and to ignore their nation being half built by slaves and immigrants being paid pennies to the dollar). I'm not even saying there is some racial or cultural significance to any of this because there isn't that much but to compare the US with Japan and South Korea? Then on balance the US gets absolutely humiliated by Japan and South Korea with all things considered. Not all that surprising considering what most average "true Americans" are capable of i.e. nothing but instagram whoring and weed abuse. Past generations were obviously much better and organised by threat of Cold War.

ougoah said:

The US population is several times higher than S.Korea and Japan combined. The US also benefit immensely from attracting a lot of talented people from around the world. Jewish immigrants from all over Europe in the 20th century basically brought the US its superpower status. Genius visa and so on and so on. Intel, AMD, nVidia ... founded, run, and innovating on pretty much half foreign talent.

I'm not saying US is itself incapable without all those advantages (and to ignore their nation being half built by slaves and immigrants being paid pennies to the dollar). I'm not even saying there is some racial or cultural significance to any of this because there isn't that much but to compare the US with Japan and South Korea? Then on balance the US gets absolutely humiliated by Japan and South Korea with all things considered. Not all that surprising considering what most average "true Americans" are capable of i.e. nothing but instagram whoring and weed abuse.

Click to expand...

Sure, a more fair comparison would be European countries like Germany or UK for SK or Japan. But even at that, Germany invented the automobile, jet engine, ballistic missiles, etc.

Things which had huge impact on the course of history. Yes OLED and composite airframes are great. But can you really say they had a bigger impact than jet engine or the car?

Also I don't it's an ability that is inherent to Americans or Europeans. I think it's more related to the east vs west mentality towards intellectual curiosity, exploration and risk taking.

China could have sent ships to discover the new world. But the emperor decided to lockdown the country and live in isolation. This also occurred in Japan and Korea as well.

It's this type of attitude or mentality that is somewhat ingrained even today in how parents and teachers think. Instead of encouraging creativity or exploration, asian parents and teachers want to crush it and replace it with obedience.

free_6ix9ine said:

Sure, a more fair comparison would be European countries like Germany or UK for SK or Japan. But even at that, Germany invented the automobile, jet engine, ballistic missiles, etc.

Things which had huge impact on the course of history. Yes OLED and composite airframes are great. But can you really say they had a bigger impact than jet engine or the car?

Click to expand...

This is far too simplistic. It's a product of circumstance as well as cultural aspects and other things we've discussed. Germany invented much of that stuff in the 20th century. The people are the same, why has Germany not achieved as much throughout the millenniums of its existence? Japanese innovation is FAR from limited to OLED and materials. A small thing like MP3 device has dozens perhaps more, inventions involved. What are we talking about? "Big inventions" like TV? Well the TV keeps evolving and the Japanese and Korean TV tech isn't the same as a CRT invented in the west. Why ignore those? Chinese TV innovations like the new transparent ones is different too. So the westerners invent a CRT to receive interpret and display visual material means they dominate TV now? Does paper money also mean China dominates that invention for all time? Everyone uses Indian numerals... guess all engineers work under them too?

Innovation and creativity is difficult to sum up. But we can say for certain American innovation culture isn't the same as it once was as impressive as it still is.

When you look even at KPOP, or KDRAMA. Is literally the same plot for every show. There is a lack of creativity. I could go on Netflix and it's hard to find two shows with the same plot.

This applies to a lot of other things besides KDRAMA. It applies to technology. Koreans are inclined to copy America or Japan, as opposed to invent something new.

free_6ix9ine said:

I agree. I'm not denying that Japan and SK has made any inventions. I'm just saying comparatively, the US has had more inventions, ie. computers, cell phones, transistors, internet, airplanes, nuclear bomb etc.

Maybe it because the US is a bigger country? Or maybe they had a head start? or Maybe culturally Americans are more willing to take risks?

I don't know for sure. It's probably a combination. My opinion, Koreans and Japanese work very hard in school and on average are better than Americans at science and math. But they are lacking in something that I can't readily identify.

Click to expand...

Well there you go. They did not invent the computer. Konrad Zuse invented the Z3 in Nazi Germany back in WW2.
Other people associated with the invention of the computer are Charles Babbage and Alan Turing (UK) or John von Neumann (Hungarian who emigrated to the US). The nuclear bomb, unlike what you may usually hear, was a multi-national effort ran by the US, the UK, and Canada. The effort was located in the US because a) it was far from the war b) they had the cashflow and resources.
The main theoretical foundations for the nuclear bomb were developed by German scientists. How do you think Klaus Fuchs got access to all the specs on the bomb to pass to the Soviets in the first place?

The US were good at developing later computers however. Plus most software standards.

Cell phones it is a mixed bag since a lot of what we today call a cell phone is based on technology which was developed in Northern Europe. GSM (2G) wasn't an American technology. Sweden and Finland invested a lot in it because the countries are quite sparse and it was hard to run phone lines to connect everyone. That is how Ericsson and Nokia came up. Prior to 2G cell phones were basically playthings for the rich. Not something ordinary people had.

I'll give you the transistor, internet, and airplane. But mind you, the world wide web, the thing we are using, it was Tim Berners-Lee (UK) while he was working at CERN in Switzerland.

The US does benefit from having a large population and unified market relative to other places. But like I said a lot of it is transplants and imports. South Korea has a population not that dissimilar to Germany's but I think the society was simply not stable enough to allow for spending on fundamental science for a long time.

Even way back when there are Japanese inventions. Metamphetamines were a Japanese invention. Kinda dubious as an invention goes but there you have it. Any claims that Asians are worse at coming up with things is bogus IMHO. To a large degree Chinese society ossified in the Qing period for several reasons, perhaps lack of external opponents for a long time, then when they came it was really hard for the society to mobilize. Japan went through two stages of Westernization. I think China has kind of stuck in the first stage. The Tokugawa tried to import Western weapons technologies at one point. But only with the Meiji restoration did they try to change the whole societal and industrial makeup of the nation. Of course it is easier to import technologies at first. Europe did much the same thing by importing Arab technology in the Renaissance. Which itself imported Eastern Roman technology and other Asian technology. The Renaissance was a product of the Crusades.

ougoah said:

This is far too simplistic. It's a product of circumstance as well as cultural aspects and other things we've discussed. Germany invented much of that stuff in the 20th century. The people are the same, why has Germany not achieved as much throughout the millenniums of its existence? Japanese innovation is FAR from limited to OLED and materials. A small thing like MP3 device has dozens perhaps more, inventions involved. What are we talking about? "Big inventions" like TV? Well the TV keeps evolving and the Japanese and Korean TV tech isn't the same as a CRT invented in the west. Why ignore those? Chinese TV innovations like the new transparent ones is different too. So the westerners invent a CRT to receive interpret and display visual material means they dominate TV now? Does paper money also mean China dominates that invention for all time? Everyone uses Indian numerals... guess all engineers work under them too?

Innovation and creativity is difficult to sum up. But we can say for certain American innovation culture isn't the same as it once was as impressive as it still is.

Click to expand...

No but I would say the originator gets the most credit, because they defined the concept and everyone else is just improving on it. It's harder to invent a brand new concept, than to make improvement on am existing one.

gelgoog said:

No, China needs to do both. They need to catch up with existing technology and develop new technology at the same time. Developing new technology without understanding existing technology gets you in the place India is at this time. i.e. trying to spin gold from straw.
There has been talk that Moore's law is obsolete for decades. The reality is, there is a roadmap to keep it going for at least another decade, and it has been so for several decades. Once we get to the atomic level, then we will have to come up with something else, perhaps vertical integration, but it does not mean this technology is useless. Much like older nodes still get used today.
There was a huge delay with EUV and people thought we were going to be stuck forever at the same process node. Then someone came up with immersion lithography and gave the industry at least a decade more of shrinks in transistor size. Enough time that EUV is now working even if not at the scale it should be. The EUV light sources are still highly inefficient. Fact is the industry was working on EUV since at least the 1970s but basically only did basic research then and gave up. Just look it up. X-ray lithography.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

"Extreme Ultra Violet" technology is in fact what used to be called "Soft X-ray" technology decades ago.
So as you see there is a path to continue die shrinks even beyond what EUV allows even if we have to got into "Hard X-ray" technology.
i.e. continue the path to decreasing wavelength. At least until we hit atomic limits.

I would disagree with you that Taiwan, Japan, and SK are only good at incremental improvements. One example is the violet laser which was basically invented in Japan along with modern green and blue lasers. This was the basis for Blu-ray technology and later for white LEDs for lighting applications. There was nothing "incremental" about it. People were trying to do it for decades and failed. Unless you think everything humans do is incremental. It was a titanic shift. Go look at research for batteries and graphene you'll also find a lot of Japanese researchers associated with it. South Korea also does a lot of technology advances but they aren't as well known in the hard sciences yet. Taiwan is limited by its population pool, but the business TSMC does hasn't been replicated elsewhere and not for lack of trying with vast resources sometimes.

Click to expand...

The problem with hard X-Rays is that they’re so high energy your materials generate messy secondary emissions that end up hurting rather than helping resolutions. EUV is good enough to get to the limit of Moore’s law. There’s no leapfrogging on this paradigm when you’re already approaching the atomic limit.