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. bigcat12345678 · 1789960301 · focus · HN ↗

         As other comments pointed out, that was always China's plan, the value here is really that when the Chinese overlord annillate the world's industrial competition, they'll have the moral high ground of being out of self-reliance and hostility by western monopolists.

         Edit:

         And, that, my fellow keyboard high-minded thinker but powerless corp peons, was also part of the China's plan all along.

         1. fangspire · 1789965791 · focus · HN ↗

            [dead]

            1. vkou · 1789973334 · focus · HN ↗

               > Was it also the Chinese plan all along to annihilate their own birh rate?

               No, that's generally what happens when countries stop being poor. Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, all have similar fertility rates.

               1. rmunn · 1789976036 · focus · HN ↗

                  But none of them had a government-mandated one-child policy (maximum, not minimum) for over three decades. That's a pretty major difference between China and neighboring countries.

                  1. vkou · 1789982694 · focus · HN ↗

                     And yet all of them have an even lower fertility rate than China.

                     On the one hand, you're proving my point. On the other hand, if you think that China's headed for a demographic disaster, so are all of those countries, and your thesis of blaming the CCP for everything... Falls a bit flat.

                     1. ricardobayes · 1789989786 · focus · HN ↗

                        China is headed for a demographic disaster, though. High schools are incredibly packed, middle schools, not so much and primary schools and kindergartens are kind of empty.

                        1. lazide · 1789994481 · focus · HN ↗

                           Everyone is, not just China.

                           1. belowavgiq · 1789996422 · focus · HN ↗

                              Everyone stupid enough to let that happen is.

                              There is a handful of developed countries where this is not an issue.

                              1. lazide · 1789997590 · focus · HN ↗

                                 Population collapse? Who, besides Zimbabwe?

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