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Trump Blocks China-Backed Takeover of US Chip Maker 'Lattice Semi' (cnn.com)
MountainLogic shares a report from CNN: President Trump has stopped the takeover of an American chip maker by a private equity firm with ties to China. The deal, which would have seen China-backed Canyon Bridge Capital Partners acquire Lattice Semiconductors, was blocked over national security concerns. "Today, consistent with the administration's commitment to take all actions necessary to ensure the protection of U.S. national security, the president issued an order prohibiting the acquisition," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement Wednesday. The national security risk included "the potential transfer of intellectual property" to the Chinese-backed company and the "Chinese government's role in supporting this transaction," according to Mnuchin's statement. Those are sensitive matters: the Trump administration launched an investigation last month into whether China is unfairly getting hold of American technology and intellectual property. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which reviews deals that could result in a foreign entity taking control of an American company, had previously recommended halting the deal. Lattice CEO Darin G. Billerbeck called the outcome "disappointing" and called the proposed acquisition "an excellent deal" for Lattice and for "expanding the opportunity to keep jobs in America." According to CNN, Lattice currently employs 300 people in Oregon -- and Canyon Bridge has committed to adding 350 more if the takeover deal went through.
Some of Lattice FPGA parts have already been reverse engineered by a single German researcher. Makes these FPGA's very desirable to use. The complete toolchain is open-source and works great. I wish Xilinx would take notice and release some more info on their 7 series parts so someone could figure out the bitstream for them.
More info on Project Icestorm here: http://www.clifford.at/icestorm/
Having been through one of these acquisitions (I work in the Semiconductor industry) the President had nothing to do with it. The FTC was involved and had to approve. Just more Trump bashing by CNN
From TFA:
""Today, consistent with the administration's commitment to take all actions necessary to ensure the protection of U.S. national security, the president issued an order prohibiting the acquisition," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement Wednesday."
Maybe he was told to do it, but as a statement of fact he issued the order and had presumably could have declined to.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I dunno what the government has to do with this particular deal, but if fears of intellectual property going to another country is the real reason here, isn't this a bit too little too late already?
Not sure if people realize this, but chinese conglomerates have been buying american technology companies for quite a while now. Not only tech too... let's see if some people recognize some of the "american giants" that are now owned by chinese conglomerates:
AMC movie theater chain, Smithfield Foods, Legendary Entertainment Group, Dick Clark Productions, General Electric, The Waldorf-Astoria, whole bunch of Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons Resort, Riot Games, Ingram Micro, International Data Group (IDG of Computerworld/Macworld fame), Motorola (bought by Google, re-sold to Lenovo), Terex Corp... heck, Chicago Stock Exchange might end up sold to a chinese conglomerate. Think about that.
A whole ton of intellectual property already went out of the country. And sure, I'm not against countries trying to keep their intellectual property inside the country... in the past, the US is well known for doing similar business with BRICS countries, taking over a whole ton of businesses and research from those to get a hold of IPs. But it kinda sounds like there's more to that.
You are misinformed.
The USA is both a democracy (or at least claims to be) and a republic.
Any country without a monarch is a republic, by definition.
A political system where the citizens can vote is a democracy. Otherwise it would be a dictatorship.
The USA is a representative democracy and not a direct democracy, like about just any country on earth (even though some have elements of direct democracy such as referendums). But it's still both a democracy and a republic, and there is absolutely nothing mutually exclusive between these two concepts.
Having been through a CFIUS review, that resulted in a recommendation to reverse the transaction, the president is involved. CFIUS makes a recommendation to the president and the president can than choose to accept or reject the recommendation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Foreign_Investment_in_the_United_States
These likely also have ITAR concerns as well. At the company I work for, we are not allowed to sell products with powerful FPGAs to many countries without an explicit export license, and lattice makes many FPGAs.
I think the concern is real. This is likely a real problem, and this move to block it is correct.
I am not a Lattice employee, but work in the semiconductor industry. I was surprised to see this article on Lattice, since I did not know they had a buyout bid by a Chinese company. They most certainly do have export restricted IP (alot of companies like them do as you know). I am surprised this was being considered.