Chinese semiconductor thread II

chgough34

Junior Member
Registered Member
Banning software is ridiculous and done by people who really don't understand how things works, most of the core technologies in software development are open source and free to download.
It’s not that there are not alternatives to closed source tools - it’s that

1) there are switching costs (in both time and money and personnel) to adapt software development flows to open source and alternative environments, especially if they use US firm inputs

2) you cut collaborations of various sorts between Chinese and global partners of various kinds - including open source collaborations because while technically legal, risk-averse corporate counsel of all stripes will warn against it both due to the potential of bad press and the legal can of worms it could potentially open

3) reducing competition from input suppliers means Chinese firms operate with less competition which increases prices, reduces innovation, and reduces the incentive to create better products for firms in China (if Chinese firms have a captive market - they have no reason to innovate)

4) those delays in various segments of the semiconductor stack mean Chinese firms of all sorts will lose the first mover advantage in various AI ecosystems, they will lose scale/network effects, and they will lose the early productivity gains associated with more AI in their firm (ex: a bank that rolls out risk models 3 years late will have 3 more years of loan losses they otherwise wouldn’t have)

There are large ecosystems in which U.S. firms play dominant roles and trying to replicate the ecosystem while also trying to catch-up with the frontier is going to be challenging, even more so with all of the regulatory uncertainty, the blocks on various types of trade within the ecosystem (the only firms that will switch to Chinese suppliers are upstream Chinese firms initially since U.S. firms have locked in clients already), and the negative effects on competition in China the U.S. has created
 
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horse

Colonel
Registered Member
Access to cloud environments, programming languages, compilers, software development tools, among others. A lot of those are closed source and are subject to U.S. jurisdiction.

It’s not that there are not alternatives to closed source tools - it’s that

1) there are switching costs (in both time and money and personnel) to adapt software development flows to open source and alternative environments, especially if they use US firm inputs

2) you cut collaborations of various sorts between Chinese and global partners of various kinds - including open source collaborations because while technically legal, risk-averse corporate counsel of all stripes will warn against it both due to the potential of bad press and the legal can of worms it could potentially open

3) reducing competition from input suppliers means Chinese firms operate with less competition which increases prices, reduces innovation, and reduces the incentive to create better products for firms in China (if Chinese firms have a captive market - they have no reason to innovate)

4) those delays in various segments of the semiconductor stack mean Chinese firms of all sorts will lose the first mover advantage in various AI ecosystems, they will lose scale/network effects, and they will lose the early productivity gains associated with more AI in their firm (ex: a bank that rolls out risk models 3 years late will have 3 more years of loan losses they otherwise wouldn’t have)

There are large ecosystems in which U.S. firms play dominant roles and trying to replicate the ecosystem while also trying to catch-up with the frontier is going to be challenging, even more so with all of the regulatory uncertainty, the blocks on various types of trade within the ecosystem (the only firms that will switch to Chinese suppliers are upstream Chinese firms initially since U.S. firms have locked in clients already), and the negative effects on competition in China the U.S. has created


What are you even talking about?

You are not talking about China, that is for sure.
 

ansy1968

Brigadier
Registered Member
Really? Why did they agree to the initial restrictions?
I give you a hint, it's because of SMEE SSA800A DUVi. 2 years bro 2 years, that's the window for ASML to maximize its sales of advance lithography machine such as NXT 2050i and NXT 2100I after that they will produced a China spec machine without any US parts or may use total local components to maintain their market share. It's the only way to survived and I may see the Japanese doing it first this year.
 

gelgoog

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
3) reducing competition from input suppliers means Chinese firms operate with less competition which increases prices, reduces innovation, and reduces the incentive to create better products for firms in China (if Chinese firms have a captive market - they have no reason to innovate)

4) those delays in various segments of the semiconductor stack mean Chinese firms of all sorts will lose the first mover advantage in various AI ecosystems, they will lose scale/network effects, and they will lose the early productivity gains associated with more AI in their firm (ex: a bank that rolls out risk models 3 years late will have 3 more years of loan losses they otherwise wouldn’t have)
Except China itself has a population, and thus a market larger, than the entire West combined.
The US removes itself from the Chinese market. Chinese companies will have an easier time expanding there. So who loses the bigger market?
Chinese companies will become self-sustaining and after they conquer their own market they will start exporting. Including to other markets currently not served by the US.

While the US has a huge first mover advantage in semiconductors their supposed domination of the sector isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Most foundries and wafer capacity are in Asia. The sectors the US leads in terms of semiconductors also keep shrinking all the time.
 

european_guy

Junior Member
Registered Member
I mean, yes, non-semiconductor firms in China have see business disruption and discontinuity from US export controls (see for example, Alibaba Cloud calling off its IPO and the continued global dominance of AWS and Azure) or US VC funding in China falling rapidly (which was my point - that the bans on exports are circumventable doesn’t mean circumventing them is a 2nd best choice with deleterious impacts elsewhere - if the best alternative ran through non-US products; they would’ve used those previously out of pure business sense).

The point is that controls on inputs to inputs in the semiconductor chain (ex: programming languages and vacuum tubes as inputs to EDA and wafer fab equipment) create various adverse first and second order effects (on competition, on downstream firms competitiveness, on technical diffusion throughout the economy, on productivity, etc) regardless of the targeted firms response to US actions


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Decoupling/self-sufficiency on semiconductors is unavoidable, no matter the cope and sour grape thrown at it. Even if US cancels all export bans, China will not stop what it has started. This is very clear from plenty of official declarations and national plans. It is not a hidden agenda.

China will keep pursuing self-sufficiency in technology no matter what US does. This is the key point that maybe is not so clear in US.

Once China reaches self-sufficiency then maybe they will eventually re-spin trade relation with US on an equal foot: "Ok, what interesting stuff has this US high tech company for us to buy?", and eventually they will return to buy US stuff without fears of "surprises", because domestic alternatives will be already tested and ready to kick in.

US will have no other choice but to compete only on the product merits....something the rest of the world already does BTW.

P.S: The software example, IMHO is not the best one. Foundational software tools are all open source: compilers, OS, web frameworks, AI platforms, etc. Not only that, it is China that is more and more distancing from US software, see for instance Huawei that dropped Android although they could still legally use the AOSP distribution, but they don't want to use it.
 

tokenanalyst

Brigadier
Registered Member
It’s not that there are not alternatives to closed source tools - it’s that

1) there are switching costs (in both time and money and personnel) to adapt software development flows to open source and alternative environments, especially if they use US firm inputs
I am referring to software they already use like compilers like the GCC or Linux
2) you cut collaborations of various sorts between Chinese and global partners of various kinds - including open source collaborations because while technically legal, risk-averse corporate counsel of all stripes will warn against it both due to the potential of bad press and the legal can of worms it could potentially open
They will collaborate even if they don't know they are doing it or someone will work for free
3) reducing competition from input suppliers means Chinese firms operate with less competition which increases prices, reduces innovation, and reduces the incentive to create better products for firms in China (if Chinese firms have a captive market - they have no reason to innovate)
They will compete even more that dealing with the current EDA duopoly that we have now that kill competition and innovation, will be company of small size in a cut throat competition.
4) those delays in various segments of the semiconductor stack mean Chinese firms of all sorts will lose the first mover advantage in various AI ecosystems, they will lose scale/network effects, and they will lose the early productivity gains associated with more AI in their firm (ex: a bank that rolls out risk models 3 years late will have 3 more years of loan losses they otherwise wouldn’t have)

There are large ecosystems in which U.S. firms play dominant roles and trying to replicate the ecosystem while also trying to catch-up with the frontier is going to be challenging, even more so with all of the regulatory uncertainty, the blocks on various types of trade within the ecosystem (the only firms that will switch to Chinese suppliers are upstream Chinese firms initially since U.S. firms have locked in clients already), and the negative effects on competition in China the U.S. has created
Not necessary, look Huawei, its creating that largest software stack ever in China, not because they want to and they thriving.
 

BlackWindMnt

Captain
Registered Member
Most of those are open source and the ones who are closed source are in-house or region locked.
Can't really block programming languages, compiler suits, software development tools etc.
Programming languages are just a spec, and the best in class compiler suits are open source(LLVM, gcc) what is there to block for software development tools are they going to block me from opening a text file xD...
 
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