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. nixon_why69 · 1789966816 · focus · HN ↗

            Eh. Industrial policy in a big country is always the output of politics between stakeholders, anthropomorphizing it to a "guy with a plan", especially an "overlord" looking to "annihilate" is probably getting it wrong.

            A friend of a friend is married to a member of the national academy of sciences in China. I heard at dinner a few years ago that he had been lobbying for more onshoring of chip production for years before the Nvidia restrictions, and always heard "you're right, maybe next year we'll be able to fund that". Then the restrictions came in and everything changed.

            1. lazide · 1789983036 · focus · HN ↗

               There are literal 5 year plans, eh?

               1. peterfirefly · 1789984871 · focus · HN ↗

                  And they are more about sounding good than about reality. They also affect a much smaller share of the economy than they used to -- which is very good! The original five year plans caused nothing but misery and starvation.

                  1. lazide · 1789994422 · focus · HN ↗

                     I’m pointing out it’s disenguous to say ‘it’s not like there was a plan’, when there was explicitly a plan with that title on it. Especially if the plan didn’t work out well.

                     1. nixon_why69 · 1789997615 · focus · HN ↗

                        It's disingenuous to characterize "don't anthropomorphize the political process" as saying no planning documents exist as part of that process.

                        And, to the point I was responding to originally, we can check those documents! They don't speak of "annihilating" other countries' industrial capacities.

                        1. pixl97 · 1790002384 · focus · HN ↗

                           >They don't speak of "annihilating" other countries' industrial capacities.

                           Why would they have to?

                           When China talked about their 5 and 10 year plans on solar panels there was no need to talk about putting the rest of the competitors out of business. That was a highly probable end goal of what they were doing, no need to state it.

                           It would be like Walmart stating "We're going to put out massive loss leaders in sporting goods to put X out of business". Instead they'll talk about growing market share and long term customer loyalty.

                           1. nixon_why69 · 1790004395 · focus · HN ↗

                              I'm sorry, I'm not following. Is the problem here that China is too capitalist or too communist?

                              1. fragmede · 1790006232 · focus · HN ↗

                                 False dichotomy. the problem is far deeper than that, and wanting to simplify the problem to those two extremes belies a belief that the world could and should be able to be simplified into two power dynamic. It is not. The world, and the powers that fight within in, are far more dynamic than a simple communist or capitalist spectrum, and attempts to simplify the world along those lines is only going to hurt you.

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