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. 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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