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China To Spend $47 Billion In Bid To Become 3rd-Largest Global Chip Manufacturer (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In an interview with Reuters, the head of China's Tsinghua Unigroup has revealed they will invest 300 billion yuan ($47bn) over the next five years with the ambition of becoming the world's third largest chip-maker. The state-backed company, also the technological investment arm of Tsinghua University, is in talks with an unnamed U.S. company (most likely Micron) though Zhao discounts the possibility of buying a controlling share as politically insensitive.
If I recall correctly, TSMC is number one, and either Samsung or Global Foundries is number two. Pretty sure it's Samsung, sing Global FOundries has been having issues getting 14nm working.
It costs money to make stuff. China got where it is today because it could make stuff cheaper.c
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
from the article
"Currently, Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O) holds the No.3 position in the global chip rankings, behind Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) and market leader Intel Corp (INTC.O), which has a market capitalization of $151.5 billion."
who where what when now?
Probably from Chandler, Arizona...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Qualcomm doesn't manufacture chips though: they design them. They're a fabless semiconductor company.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I think it's getting to be time for public companies to have an upper limit on the nature of compensation bonuses for top management. Stop it with the golden parachutes and define the rules where their stock options given as bonuses cannot be exercised until so many years have passed and then must be cashed-out when they have matured, such that management has incentive to do what it takes to leave the company healthy even as they exit it.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
If you read the article or look at wikipedia you'll see that Intel is easily #1 (by revenue.)
Consider that they design and manufacture most processors in laptops and desktops and that those chips are a lot more expensive than generic ICs.
Then it's Samsung, Qualcomm (who doesn't actually fab their own stuff), and Micron. I don't think they're including foundries but even if you included those TSMC would probably only be #3 (or a very close #4.)
No other foundry even comes close to top 10 semiconductor company revenue.
China's current top foundry is probably SMIC and they don't even have a semiconductor company in the top 20 revenue list. You'll see lots of USA, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan (more so in foundries), and a few European companies instead.
All those Chinese nationals working for current western semiconductor companies... you don't think that's a coincidence, do you?
I have it from reliable sources that they are always expected to "bring something home" when they return even for visiting family. Some don't because of their own ethics but there is a push to do it.
Qualcomm licenses/patents their wares. The don't manufacture them.
That model would never wrk in China--they would clone it and screww Qualcomm over the license fees. They don't respect IP laws, mind that standards trade secrets and such. It's when they could lose the entire market they would comply. Otherwise the gov't promotes piracy & disrespect for IP. If anything thse practices will give way if they want the entire market....
Politically insensitive.
Apparently their PR is trying to garner sympathy from SJWs by standing up to the bully regulators who might stop the buyout.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
China has infiltrated the networks of most major US companies, so in all likelihood all of the schematics and blueprints from Intel are available to them, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. China is far and away the world leader in computer espionage, certainly in terms of the relentless volume of constant attacks and probably also in the sophistication of their best attacks. Some companies block all of China's IP space from accessing their networks because the daily attacks are relentless.
We can assume that any technology US or European companies have is in the hands of the Chinese government, or soon will be. Keep in mind too this electronics company is part of the Chinese government - the same organization that employs armies of hackers. So if not a question of if the government will provide this IP to the company- the government -is- the company and company is the government.
Tell that to the civilians in Paris. Do you want to wait till the crazies reach your town?
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Regardless of the investment stated the problem with this countries "state owned" businesses are that profit isn't needed as quickly as other markets.
Even if 76 billion is the initial commitment, they can sell at a loss for years until there's no competition.
Then what?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
of existing chips of course.
Do I need to say more? Am I going to start getting approached by Chinese nationals with offers of five- or six-digit paydays for smuggling next-gen silicon to them from the major microprocessor/SoC manufacturer I work for, so they can make knock-offs with malware/spyware/botnet baked right into them?
INB4 modding me down for China-bashing by the China shills.
Their Wikipedia page says nothing about their EE department. I took a quick look at their EE dept. faculty page and, while large, don't seem to be doing much in chip design or fabrication.
Can someone with more knowledge of the University provide some insight on its relationship to the Chinese military and national government? Has anybody here worked with current Tsinghua University faculty?
A good chunk of Micron's chip manufacturing capacity is via IMFT, which is a joint venture with Intel (hence the Intel Micron Flash Technologies Inc.) and I really doubt the US government would let them buy Micron...
On the other hand, there are a bunch of chip manufactures in Taiwan (like TSMC or UMC) that they could buy, or even a bunch of Chinese manufacturers like SMIC that they could buy and expand.
Your post didn't make much more sense than the concept of a buyout being politically insensitive. What is an SJW? In what way is a possible buyout political? Why would people be sensitive about it? Whose feelings would it hurt?
And the world is a better place because of it. If only they'd disrespect, pirate, and open up the modeling and simulation tools for ASIC design.
More and more the world moves to standardized building blocks, open design specifications, clone off those designs manufacturing along with more and more accessible and affordable at home design and prototype fabrication. In 10-15 years chip features will no longer be shrinking, the technology and design tools will embrace an open commodity standard and I'll be able to design a custom chip as easily as I do a custom pcb today. In 20-25 years I'll be able to hit the print button on my 3D printer/assembler and it will combine conductive, magnetic, and insulating materials to build a fully integrated electronic that substitutes for all the functionality of a pcb+components today. Who knows, maybe I'll just print it as an integrated part of the enclosure and just add any consumables needed and plug it in. Then I'll upload my cool lavalamp design to thing-a-verse and anyone else who wants one can have one as well. Building new physical things and electronics will be no more difficult than 3d modeling and/or programming today.
And look at the economic benefits reaped by those countries. You just mentioned a four hundred year time span as each nation got it's chance and/or caught up, just add china to your list as they are just now getting around to it. In every case the nation mentioned became the global economic leader as a consequence.
What we in the US need to do and spread the wealth around to our population with a minimum income that we grow as much as possible and invest it in India and china so that chinese industry borrows wealth from us and pays us interest while we continue developing automations to do the actual work and eventually progress to the point where we are all independently wealthy.
Actually, we need to roll back the regs that reagan removed.
After the great stock market crash, a reg was put in place that required that all executives not own any stock in the industry that they were working in. As such, they made correct choices for the company and not for themselves. Since reagan rolled that back, the executives have shifted from being paid wages (with normal taxation), along with a bonus for profit performance, to paying themselves with massive stock options in which they pay little to nothing in taxes. Worse, they put their own interests above the the company's long-term interest.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"of the highest technical quality"
That doesn't sound like the Chinese.
"to a low price"
That part does.
There are Chinese manufacturers aplenty making PCBs but if you actually want quality boards that consistently work and if populated are populated with the components you specified you order us or european boards and pay the couple dollars more.
At some point a lower price is actually more expensive due to the quality sacrifice to get there.
What are you talking about? The Chinese have been making knock-offs of microchips for decades, and they are a power-house of child labor-powered, sub living-wage, sub human rights manufacturing. They don't need any technology of their own to do what they already do, they're just looking to scale up production and pirate new markets.
There, fixed that for you.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
yes, no different from the 1400 Spain, 1500's UK, 1800's US, but hasn't the world advance a little in the last 150yrs?
That question works against your argument too. Why would China stew in such an ancient state of affairs when via the "cheaper" methods you complain about, they are building a modern economy?
The only thing on that which gives me pause is when company founders and owners that work for the company and own the company when it's private transition it to public, rigid rules might require them to sell their portions. I don't think it's necessary to compel executives to not own the companies for which they work, but I do believe that there needs to be a catch to prevent a pump-and-dump.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Both. Just like everyone else.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
ah.
No, during a start-up, that is different. Basically, these are the owners that have stock options PRIOR to it going public. However, once you go public, then you would no longer get stock or options in the publicly traded stock.
the one issue that I see is that now that so many LBO groups exists out there, what will it mean when they take a company private? I assume that it is like having it back to start-up phase. As such, any executives in that time, can get all of the options that they want. However, upon IPO, that is over.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
To compete against intel, you must make a x86 compatible CPU, and due the ridiculously huge warchest of patents intel and AMD, only those two can do it without getting sued to hell and back.