Comment by Riaz Haq on August 2, 2020 at 11:42am

Nikkei reported earlier today that TSMC has moved to stop new orders from Huawei following the US government’s announcement last week. The rules are specifically designed to target Huawei and its chip subsidiary HiSilicon, requiring a license for any shipments from manufacturers that use US technology or equipment. TSMC didn’t deny the reports but called them “purely market rumor,” according to Reuters.


https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/18/21262042/huawei-us-export-tsmc-c...


Huawei has in the past suggested that it could switch its chip supply to Samsung in this eventuality. The company has also recently been exploring domestic chip production through China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), which just received a $2.2 billion investment from the Chinese government.

SMIC is a relatively tiny competitor to TSMC, however, and it would take a long time to scale up to Huawei’s cutting-edge demands. Last week SMIC started mass production of HiSilicon’s Kirin 710A processor on its 14nm node, but TSMC is expected to move onto a more advanced 5nm process this year. Even the original Kirin 710 was manufactured by TSMC at 12nm, and that was a mid-range chip in 2018.

“This decision by the US government does not just affect Huawei. It will have a serious impact on a wide number of global industries,” Huawei says in its statement. “In the long run, this will damage the trust and collaboration within the global semiconductor industry which many industries depend on, increasing conflict and loss within these industries. The US is leveraging its own technological strengths to crush companies outside its own borders. This will only serve to undermine the trust international companies place in US technology and supply chains. Ultimately, this will harm US interests.”

Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s consumer division, also spoke out against the US government today. “The so-called cybersecurity reasons are merely an excuse,” he wrote in a WeChat post reported on by Bloomberg. “The key is the threat to the technology hegemony of the US.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 2, 2020 at 11:43am

Nikkei reported earlier today that TSMC has moved to stop new orders from Huawei following the US government’s announcement last week. The rules are specifically designed to target Huawei and its chip subsidiary HiSilicon, requiring a license for any shipments from manufacturers that use US technology or equipment. TSMC didn’t deny the reports but called them “purely market rumor,” according to Reuters.


https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/18/21262042/huawei-us-export-tsmc-c...


Huawei has in the past suggested that it could switch its chip supply to Samsung in this eventuality. The company has also recently been exploring domestic chip production through China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), which just received a $2.2 billion investment from the Chinese government.

SMIC is a relatively tiny competitor to TSMC, however, and it would take a long time to scale up to Huawei’s cutting-edge demands. Last week SMIC started mass production of HiSilicon’s Kirin 710A processor on its 14nm node, but TSMC is expected to move onto a more advanced 5nm process this year. Even the original Kirin 710 was manufactured by TSMC at 12nm, and that was a mid-range chip in 2018.

“This decision by the US government does not just affect Huawei. It will have a serious impact on a wide number of global industries,” Huawei says in its statement. “In the long run, this will damage the trust and collaboration within the global semiconductor industry which many industries depend on, increasing conflict and loss within these industries. The US is leveraging its own technological strengths to crush companies outside its own borders. This will only serve to undermine the trust international companies place in US technology and supply chains. Ultimately, this will harm US interests.”

Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s consumer division, also spoke out against the US government today. “The so-called cybersecurity reasons are merely an excuse,” he wrote in a WeChat post reported on by Bloomberg. “The key is the threat to the technology hegemony of the US.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 9, 2020 at 7:38am

#US squeeze on #China’s apps, #digital infrastructure could upend global internet. Over 20 of 100 top-grossing apps on #Google Play are #Chinese, while 10 of the 100 highest grossing apps on #Apple’s App Store are from China. #CleanNetwork https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3096323/us-squeeze-china... via @scmpnews

“Many of the Chinese companies currently under unilateral US sanctions are innocent, and their technology and products are safe,” said Wang Wenbin, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, in a statement on Thursday. “It is absurd for the US to talk of a ‘Clean Network’ when it is covered in its own filth”, referencing the Edward Snowden incident and Prism surveillance.

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The Trump administration’s “Clean Network” programme threatens to further disrupt China’s technology industry, as the campaign seeks to restrict the international expansion of Chinese apps, cloud services and undersea cable networks.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday made sweeping remarks that – “to keep Americans’ data safe from untrusted vendors” – he will aim to remove Chinese-owned apps in the market as well as cut off links with China’s digital infrastructure.
The initiative, which the State Department said includes the commitment of more than 30 countries and territories, is likely to escalate the complex tech war between the world’s two largest economies, according to analysts.
“The negative effect of this programme is that it’s becoming harder to see a truly global vision of the internet and access without borders surviving this tech war,” said Paul Haswell, a partner who advises technology companies at international law firm Pinsent Masons. “It would seem that the object of the campaign is to remove Chinese technology from all aspects of US data transmission and processes. We’ll have to see if that is even possible in practice.”

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“This latest ramp-up in US-China tensions poses a potential barrier for the Chinese cloud companies to expand globally,” said Mathew Ball, Canalys’ chief analyst for global infrastructure, cloud and cybersecurity. He added, however, that this campaign “will be challenging to enforce outside the US”.
Pompeo said the US campaign is also focused on keeping the undersea cables that links the country to the global internet safe from intelligence-gathering by China.
In June, the US government blocked a major undersea cable network from linking Hong Kong to the US West Coast because it “would expose US communications traffic to collection” by China.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 9, 2020 at 7:38am

#US #CleanNetwork aims to restrict #international growth of #Chinese apps, cloud services and undersea cable networks. 20+ of 100 top-grossing apps on #Google Play are #Chinese, while 10 of the 100 highest grossing apps on #Apple’s App Store are from China https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3096323/us-squeeze-china...

The Clean Network campaign also aims to prevent sensitive personal information of US citizens and businesses’ most valuable intellectual property – including Covid-19 vaccine research – from being stored and processed on cloud computing platforms run by the likes of

Alibaba Group Holding
, telecommunications network operators

China Mobile
and

China Telecom
,

Baidu
and Tencent.

Tencent and Alibaba, the parent company of the South China Morning Post, declined to comment on the US programme on Thursday. Baidu did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Alibaba Cloud
was the world’s fourth-largest cloud services provider in the second quarter, behind Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, according to research firm Canalys.
“This latest ramp-up in US-China tensions poses a potential barrier for the Chinese cloud companies to expand globally,” said Mathew Ball, Canalys’ chief analyst for global infrastructure, cloud and cybersecurity. He added, however, that this campaign “will be challenging to enforce outside the US”.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 14, 2021 at 4:06pm

Lack of #Computer Chips Disrupts #Automobile Factories Worldwide. #Semiconductor chips are used in touch screens, engine controls & transmissions, communications, suspensions, anti-lock brakes & collision avoidance systems with cameras and other sensors https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/business/auto-factories-semicond...

Geopolitics also played a role. The Trump administration in September placed restrictions on Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, China’s main foundry, which produces chips for cars and many other applications. The company’s customers began looking for alternatives, generating additional competition for chip supplies from other foundries, said Gaurav Gupta, a vice president at the research firm Gartner.

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The chip crisis is an example of how the pandemic has shaken the global economy in unpredictable ways. Carmakers expected to face supply chain shortages, and plants closed early in 2020 because of fear that workers would infect one another, or because trucking firms had stopped delivering. Most U.S. auto factories ceased production for roughly two months last spring.

Automakers braced for turmoil when the pandemic hit. They expected supply chain disruptions and plummeting sales. But they never figured that a year later one of their biggest problems would be PlayStations.

Strong demand for gaming systems, personal computers and other electronics by a world stuck indoors has sucked up supplies of semiconductors, forcing carmakers around the world to scramble for the chips that have become as essential to mobility as gasoline or steel.

Virtually no carmaker has been spared. Toyota Motor has shut down production lines in China. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles temporarily stopped production at plants in Ontario and Mexico. Volkswagen has warned of production problems at factories in China, Europe and the United States. Ford Motor said last week that it was idling a Louisville, Ky., factory for a week because of the shortage.

When Covid-19 hit, automakers slashed orders for chips in anticipation of plunging sales. At the same time, semiconductor makers shifted their production lines to meet surging orders for chips used in products like laptop computers, webcams, tablets and 5G smartphones.

-----------

Businesses also upgraded their digital infrastructure to handle online meetings and employees working from home, while telecommunications companies invested in broadband infrastructure, further fueling demand for semiconductors.

Then auto sales bounced back faster than expected at the end of 2020, catching everyone off guard. The shortages of chips that ensued are expected to last well into 2021, because it can take semiconductor makers six to nine months to realign production.

“Consumer electronics exploded,” said Dan Hearsch, a managing director at the consulting firm AlixPartners. “Everybody and their brother wanted to buy an Xbox and PlayStation and laptops, while automotive shut down. Then automotive came back faster than expected, and that’s where you get into this problem.”

While the shortage is not expected to cause auto prices to rise very much, buyers might have to wait longer to get the vehicles they want.

The chip shortage has its roots in long-term forces reshaping the auto and semiconductor industries, as well as short-term confusion from the pandemic.

-------------


“Future investment in these foundries will therefore be critical so that the automotive industry can avoid such supply chain upheavals in the future,” Continental said in a statement.

Infineon, based in Munich, said it was stepping up investment in new production capacity in 2021 to as much as 1.5 billion euros, or $1.8 billion, from €1.1 billion in 2020. The company is also ramping up production at a new chip factory in Villach, Austria, that will produce 12-inch wafers.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 25, 2021 at 5:38pm

#Superpower status will depend on #semiconductor chips. #TSMC building world's largest $20 billion fab in #Taiwan to manufacture chips at dimensions of just 3 nanometers that'll power everything from latest iPhones to medical equipment to F-35 fighters. https://www.ft.com/content/44e28cad-55b7-4995-a5c5-6de6f9733747


This vast capital expenditure highlights the near-insatiable demand for computer chips, the dominance of Taiwanese chipmakers and the sophistication of modern manufacturing. TSMC’s chips power everything from Apple’s latest iPhones to medical equipment to F-35 warplanes, accounting for about 55 per cent of global semiconductor sales.

But the manufacture of semiconductors is becoming a geopolitical imperative, too. As part of its squeeze on China’s tech industry, the US has pressured TSMC to stop supplying Huawei, previously one of its biggest customers. China, which spends more on importing computer chips than oil, is developing a semiconductor industry to reduce dependence on overseas suppliers. 

Sensing their own vulnerability, the US, Japan and the EU are also stepping up their efforts to develop indigenous semiconductor industries, as their carmakers and computer games companies wail about the lack of supply. Computer chips currently vie with vaccines as must-have resources for any nation state.

If military capability in previous centuries was built on breech-loading rifles, warships or atomic bombs, it may well depend in the 21st century on the smartest use of advanced chips. The centrality of TSMC to the global semiconductor industry is sometimes given as a reason why mainland China might yet invade Taiwan. But far bigger military and political considerations will determine Beijing’s course of action.

By any measure, TSMC is an extraordinary company which is reaping the benefits of out-investing its rivals. It has just announced that its capital spending will further increase to between $25bn and $28bn this year as it struggles to add capacity fast enough to match demand. During an earnings call last month, CC Wei, TSMC’s chief executive, said that surging sales of smartphones and high-performance computers and the adoption of 5G mobile technology were fuelling demand for the company’s leading-edge logic chips. “We believe that 5G is a multiyear megatrend that will enable a world where digital computation is increasingly ubiquitous,” he said.

Most other semiconductor companies have dropped out of the race to manufacture 3nm chips due to the stratospheric costs. It will now be hard for any rival to catch up with TSMC because of its vast capital spending, its technological expertise, its network of suppliers and its support from the Taiwanese government. Only Samsung of South Korea is visible in its rear-view mirror.

“What separates TSMC from other foundries is its appetite to take risks and its ability to execute. It is an incredible business model,” says Brett Simpson, a tech analyst at Arete, an independent research firm. “The market is heading for one dominant player and one subscale player that is hanging in there and executing very well.”

The bigger concern for TSMC is the geopolitical tension between the US and China. With two fabrication plants in China, one in the US state of Washington and another planned in Arizona, TSMC has been hedging its bets. But like many other companies in a fast-polarising world, it is being forced to choose.

Shelley Rigger, a professor at Davidson College in North Carolina and author of Why Taiwan Matters, says that US pressure on China is only reinforcing Beijing’s determination to become self-sufficient in semiconductor manufacturing: “China has infinite money to throw at a problem like this and no scruples about doing what needs to be done.”

Taiwan has long feared that the world could divide into Chinese-dominated red supply chains and US-focused blue supply chains, jeopardising relations with either its biggest trading partner or its main strategic ally. The island’s room for manoeuvre is becoming as thin as TSMC’s wafers.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 28, 2021 at 8:12pm

Is There a War Coming Between China and the U.S.?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/opinion/china-us-2034.html

If you’re looking for a compelling beach read this summer, I recommend the novel “2034,” by James Stavridis, a retired admiral, and Elliot Ackerman, a former Marine and intelligence officer. The book is about how China and America go to war in 2034, beginning with a naval battle near Taiwan and with China acting in a tacit alliance with Iran and Russia.

I’m not giving it all away to say China and the U.S. end up in a nuclear shootout and incinerate a few of each other’s cities, and the result is that neutral India becomes the dominant world power. (Hey, it’s a novel!)

--------------

Are we up to the challenge? I’m pretty sure we can keep a more aggressive, nationalistic Russia and Iran deterred at a reasonable cost, and with the help of our traditional allies.

But China is another question. So we’d better understand where our strengths and weaknesses lie, as well as China’s.

China is now a true peer competitor in the military, technological and economic realms, except — except in one critical field: designing and manufacturing the most advanced microprocessors and logic and memory chips that are the base layer for artificial intelligence, machine learning, high-performance computing, electric vehicles, telecommunications — i.e., the whole digital economy that we’re moving into.

China’s massive, state-led effort to develop its own vertically integrated microchip industry has so far largely failed to master the physics and hardware to manipulate matter at the nano-scale, a skill required to mass produce super-sophisticated microprocessors.

However, just a few miles away from China sits the largest and most sophisticated contract chip maker in the world: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. According to the Congressional Research Service, TSMC is one of only three manufacturers in the world that fabricate the most advanced semiconductor chips — and by far the biggest. The second and third are Samsung and Intel.

Most chip designers, like IBM, Qualcomm, Nvidia, AMD (and even Intel to some extent) now use TSMC and Samsung to make the microprocessors they design.

But, just as important, three of the five companies that make the super-sophisticated lithography machines, tools and software used by TSMC and others to actually make the microchips — Applied Materials, Lam Research Corporation and KLA Corporation — are based in the United States. (The other two are Dutch and Japanese.) China largely lacks this expertise.

As such, the American government has the leverage to restrict TSMC from making advanced chips for Chinese companies. Indeed, just two weeks ago, the U.S. made TSMC suspend new orders from seven Chinese supercomputing centers suspected of assisting in the country’s weapons development.

The South China Morning Post quoted Francis Lau, a University of Hong Kong computer scientist, as saying: “The sanctions would definitely affect China’s ability to keep to its leading position in supercomputing,” because all of its current supercomputers mostly use processors from Intel or designed by AMD and IBM and manufactured by TSMC. Although there are Korean and Japanese alternatives, Lau added, they are not as powerful.

China, though, is doubling down on research in the physics, nanotechnology and material sciences that will drive the next generation of chips and chip-making equipment. But it could take China a decade or more to reach the cutting edge.

That’s why — today — as much as China wants Taiwan for reasons of ideology, it wants TSMC in the pocket of Chinese military industries for reasons of strategy. And as much as U.S. strategists are committed to preserving Taiwan’s democracy, they are even more committed to ensuring that TSMC doesn’t fall into China’s hands for reasons of strategy. (TSMC is now building a new semiconductor factory in Phoenix.) Because, in a digitizing world, he who controls the best chip maker will control … a lot.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 28, 2021 at 8:20pm

Elliot Ackerman & James Stavridis, 2034: A Novel of the Next World War


https://americanwritersmuseum.org/program-calendar/elliot-ackerman-...

On March 12, 2034, US Navy Commodore Sarah Hunt is on the bridge of her flagship, the guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones, conducting a routine freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea when her ship detects an unflagged trawler in clear distress, smoke billowing from its bridge. On that same day, US Marine aviator Major Chris “Wedge” Mitchell is flying an F35E Lightning over the Strait of Hormuz, testing a new stealth technology as he flirts with Iranian airspace. By the end of that day, Wedge will be an Iranian prisoner, and Sarah Hunt’s destroyer will lie at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Chinese Navy. Iran and China have clearly coordinated their moves, which involve the use of powerful new forms of cyber weaponry that render US ships and planes defenseless. In a single day, America’s faith in its military’s strategic pre-eminence is in tatters. A new, terrifying era is at hand.

So begins a disturbingly plausible work of speculative fiction, co-authored by an award-winning novelist and decorated Marine veteran and the former commander of NATO, a legendary admiral who has spent much of his career strategically outmaneuvering America’s most tenacious adversaries. Written with a powerful blend of geopolitical sophistication and human empathy, 2034 takes us inside the minds of a global cast of characters—Americans, Chinese, Iranians, Russians, Indians—as a series of arrogant miscalculations on all sides leads the world into an intensifying international storm. In the end, China and the United States will have paid a staggering cost, one that forever alters the global balance of power.

Everything in 2034 is an imaginative extrapolation from present-day facts on the ground combined with the authors’ years working at the highest and most classified levels of national security. Sometimes it takes a brilliant work of fiction to illuminate the most dire of warnings: 2034 is all too close at hand, and this cautionary tale presents the reader a dark yet possible future that we must do all we can to avoid.

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 2, 2021 at 7:52pm

Chip shortage highlights U.S. dependence on fragile supply chain - 60 Minutes - CBS News

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/semiconductor-chip-shortage-60-minutes...

Lesley Stahl: Should Americans be concerned that most chips are being manufactured in Asia today?

Mark Liu: I understand their concern, first of all. But this is not about Asia or not Asia I mean, the shortage will happen no matter where the production is located because it's due to the COVID.

Lesley Stahl: But Pat Gelsinger at Intel talks about a need to rebalance the supply chain issue because so much, so many of the chips in the world now are made in Asia.

Mark Liu: I think U.S. ought to pursue to run faster, to invest in R&D, to produce more Ph.D., master, bachelor students to get into this manufacturing field instead of trying to move the supply chain, which is very costly and really non productive. That will slow down the innovation because-- people trying to hold on their technology to their own and forsake the global collaboration.

Within the world of global collaboration there's intense competition. Days after Intel announced spending $20 billion on two new fabs, TSMC announced it would spend $100 billion over three years on R&D, upgrades, and a new fab in Phoenix, Arizona, Intel's backyard, where the Taiwanese company will produce the chips Apple needs but the Americans can't make.

Mark Liu: That was a big investment.

But there's a looming shadow over TSMC, which supplies chips for our cars, iPhones, and the supercomputer managing our nuclear stockpile: China's President Xi Jinping, who has intensified his long-time threat to seize Taiwan.

China's attempts to develop its own advanced chip industry have failed and so it's been forced to import chips. But last year, Washington imposed restrictions on chipmakers from exporting certain semiconductors to china. Both Liu and Gelsinger fear the escalating trade war with China may backfire, and in Intel's case: could hurt business.

Lesley Stahl: Are they your biggest customer?

Pat Gelsinger: China is one of our largest markets today. You know, over 25% of our revenue is to Chinese customers. We expect that this will remain an area of tension, and one that needs to be navigated carefully. Because if there's any points that people can't keep running their countries or running their businesses because of supply of one critical component like semiconductors, boy, that leads them to take very extreme postures on things because they have to.

The most extreme would be China invading Taiwan and in the process gaining control of TSMC. That could force the U.S. to defend Taiwan as we did Kuwait from the Iraqis 30 years ago. Then it was oil. Now it's chips.

Lesley Stahl: The chip industry in Taiwan has been called the Silicon Shield.

Mark Liu: Yes.

Lesley Stahl: What does that mean?

Mark Liu: That means the world all needs Taiwan's high-tech industry support. So they will not let the war happen in this region because it goes against interest of every country in the world.

Lesley Stahl: Do you think that in any way your industry is keeping Taiwan safe?

Mark Liu: I cannot comment on the safety. I mean, this is a changing world. Nobody want these things to happen. And I hope-- I hope not too-- either.

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 3, 2021 at 10:41am

On CBS 60 Minutes show aired May 2, 2021, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger speculated about unilateral US technology sanctions against China triggering "extreme postures". CBS reporter expanded on it by talking about "China invading Taiwan and in the process gaining control of TSMC", She said, "The most extreme would be China invading Taiwan and in the process gaining control of TSMC. That could force the U.S. to defend Taiwan as we did Kuwait from the Iraqis 30 years ago. Then it was oil. Now it's chips".

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/semiconductor-chip-shortage-60-minutes...

Why has US fallen behind? It can mainly be attributed to Intel's failure to stay ahead s a result.

Intel has recently fired its Indian-American chief engineer Venkata Murthy Renduchintala, who also served as Group President of the Technology, Systems Architecture and Client Group (TSCG), for failure to deliver 7 nanometer semiconductor technology on schedule, according to Reuters. The news has knocked the market value of Intel by tens of billions dollars. The American company, the biggest global chip manufacturer with in-house fabrication plants, has also decided to outsource manufacturing. This could deal a serious blow to America's global leadership in chip manufacturing which is fundamental to all other computer and communications related technologies.

https://www.riazhaq.com/2020/07/has-intels-indian-american-techie.html

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