Chinese semiconductor industry

horse said:

Tech is very weird compared to other industries.

Take for instance the railroad industry. It is always the same railroad companies, such as Union Pacific, which still exists, which is the same Union Pacific in the board game Monopoly.

Tech is different. The tech industry can be rearranged in a matter of a couple of years.

So far from what I have seen watching tech companies, who has a better product wipes out the competitors.

Here is an old graphic.

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Lol, that chart doesn't even have mySpace or Friendster, remember them? "Apps" weren't even a thing then.

As mentioned in the post above mine, software, yes, you can say this. Not hardware.

CPU space, Intel is still here, AMD is still here, ARM has been around longer than people realize (Apple Newton used ARM).
GPU space still is nVidia and AMD/ATI.
On the system integrator side, you still have Apple and Lenovo (former IBM). Of course there is a lot of consolidation (CPU: SGI-MIPS, Sun-SPARC, DEC-Alpha all dead, GPU: S3, 3dfx, Trident, Matrox, basically dead), but that is just indicative of a maturing market, rather than straight replacement as is the case with software (calling all WordPerfect users...).

supersnoop said:

Lol, that chart doesn't even have mySpace or Friendster, remember them? "Apps" weren't even a thing then.

As mentioned in the post above mine, software, yes, you can say this. Not hardware.

CPU space, Intel is still here, AMD is still here, ARM has been around longer than people realize (Apple Newton used ARM).
GPU space still is nVidia and AMD/ATI.
On the system integrator side, you still have Apple and Lenovo (former IBM). Of course there is a lot of consolidation (CPU: SGI-MIPS, Sun-SPARC, DEC-Alpha all dead, GPU: S3, 3dfx, Trident, Matrox, basically dead), but that is just indicative of a maturing market, rather than straight replacement as is the case with software (calling all WordPerfect users...).

Click to expand...

It was industrial policy that made all these companies, and it will be industrial policy that puts Chinese companies in a dominant position. Once China has the full semiconductor technology stack, it can use its dominant position as a buyer of chips and its massive market to compel companies to buy MiC chips. If they don't, they don't sell their products in China because national security.

America is going to curse the day it came up with the term "national security".

ZeEa5KPul said:

It was industrial policy that made all these companies, and it will be industrial policy that puts Chinese companies in a dominant position. Once China has the full semiconductor technology stack, it can use its dominant position as a buyer of chips and its massive market to compel companies to buy MiC chips. If they don't, they don't sell their products in China because national security.

America is going to curse the day it came up with the term "national security".

Click to expand...

Chinese industrial policy is actually quite "capitalist" in a way. While China has always tried to push stronger domestic technologies, it rarely mandates them. You can see this in the auto industry where foreign brands still control the market share. The only protection put in place was the joint venture system. Most critics call it "pilfering" technology, but in reality most of the manufacturing put into China in the 2000's was already obsolete, but due to the poorer economy, still relevant to the market. So really, there was nothing to learn technologically, but IMO the most valuable lessons were in terms of organizational knowledge.

If the government tries to compel companies to use inferior products, then you will end up with inferior companies. From my own observation, China is willing to prop up companies to compete, and not just exist. This is Japan's issue. Look at the growth of BOE vs JDI's collapse.

supersnoop said:

If the government tries to compel companies to use inferior products

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I was careful to specify "when China has the technology" - I'm assuming the technologies are comparable. And I don't mean just compelling Chinese companies, I mean compelling all companies in China to use Chinese semiconductors. For example, if Apple wants to continue selling iPhones in China, then it gets its chips made at SMIC. No TSMC chips in China once China's technology catches up.

ZeEa5KPul said:

I was careful to specify "when China has the technology" - I'm assuming the technologies are comparable. And I don't mean just compelling Chinese companies, I mean compelling all companies in China to use Chinese semiconductors. For example, if Apple wants to continue selling iPhones in China, then it gets its chips made at SMIC. No TSMC chips in China once China's technology catches up.

Click to expand...

Unless of course, if TSMC fabs uses SMEE equipment which was designed and made in China.

FairAndUnbiased said:

Not really. Software and hardware are nothing alike. Japanese IC industry was never focused on consumer and processors, they were focused on analog, sensor and microcontrollers for industrial applications.

You can't just switch process nodes and do die shrinks on a whim like you can release a new software version, die shrinks have very real, physical limitations like heat generation and very real, economic limitations like hundreds of millions USD. Costs include design, validation, mask fabrication, prototyping, programming tool development, IP libraries, etc. Lead times aren't days like in software. More like months to years. The fab needs to buy wafers, get masks for each layer, buy chemicals... And that's just for a die shrink, not a functionally new product.

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That is what I am saying.

Tech is weird that way because there are all these sunk costs to the equipment, then all of the sudden that equipment can become obsolete (including the product), meaning that company is screwed.

The railroad industry still has the same railroads for 200 years. 20 years in tech is already several lifetimes.

supersnoop said:

Lol, that chart doesn't even have mySpace or Friendster, remember them? "Apps" weren't even a thing then.

Click to expand...

That I forget.

IBM, that is the same company, and not the same company.

If it did not change, IBM probably would not have survived.

horse said:

That is what I am saying.

Tech is weird that way because there are all these sunk costs to the equipment, then all of the sudden that equipment can become obsolete (including the product), meaning that company is screwed.

The railroad industry still has the same railroads for 200 years. 20 years in tech is already several lifetimes.

Click to expand...

software can become obsolete quickly but most semiconductor fabs built after 1990 are still in operation. The ones that aren't had their parent companies go out of business or got cancelled.

Only one specific set of chips - logic SoCs - changes so rapidly that it obsoletes equipment.

With her Daughter back now this, Hope next year is a good one with its owned FAB producing its own Chip. Jia You!!!!

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