Thread

1. HarHarVeryFunny · 1789937583 · focus · HN ↗

   On a related note, I was reading yesterday that apparently the real bottleneck for Chinese production of AI accelerators is HBM production, not processors or ASML equipment.

   The lack of ASML EUV machines certainly hurts, and pushing DUV so hard results in abysmal yields of good chips, but you can compensate by running more wafers or making smaller chips, and the net result is that Huawei's Ascend production volume is limited by CXMT's HBM capacity not processor dies.

   The problem is that HBM manufacture requires many steps (die thinning, via drilling, plating, alignment) where the equipment used by everyone else (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron) is also blocked by sanctions, so the Chinese are having to develop all of this themselves too, which they have, but yields are currently low, even when using shorter HBM stacks.

   1. jacquesm · 1789951954 · focus · HN ↗

      The only thing the West is achieving here is that sooner or later China will be able to compete on their own terms rather than ours. It may buy some time but the end result is very predictable.

      1. deepsun · 1789968908 · focus · HN ↗

         Well Soviet Union tried to be self-sufficient, but the truth is such strategy loses to global free trade. Whether we want it or not, global trade is what keeps the world from WW3 for now, not the nuclear MAD.

         1. klrefg · 1789970169 · focus · HN ↗

            Few countries rely more economically on global trade than China though.
         2. hiddencost · 1789974745 · focus · HN ↗

            You understand that the US has alienated almost all of its trading partners and is aggressively attempting to kill free global trade, right?

            Whereas China is developing a powerful network of rapidly developing trading partners like Africa and the Middle East?

            1. deepsun · 1790099009 · focus · HN ↗

               Yep, exactly. US is in the active process of shooting itself in the foot. My point is that China is very dependent on resources imports, so there's no way for them (and any other country) to be self-sufficient or they will stagnate.
         3. jacquesm · 1789975809 · focus · HN ↗

            The Soviet Union never was the manufacturing power behind a very significant fraction of the worlds products.

            1. deepsun · 1790098827 · focus · HN ↗

               And China is very dependent on imports of almost everything. Maybe some rare elements, but e.g. oil is a big part of it (they agressively diversify off it, but it's still a large piece). Global interdependency is a good thing.

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