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Micron, Samsung, Hynix Investigated By China Over Antitrust Violations (yahoo.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the ongoing-trade-disputes dept.

hackingbear shares a report from Yahoo Finance: Micron Technology Inc., the largest U.S. maker of computer memory chips, said Chinese regulatory authority representatives visited its offices in that country, potentially opening another front in a growing trade dispute between the world's two largest economies. Chinese media reported that Samsung and SK Hynix also received visits from local regulators seeking information. Micron got about half of its sales from China last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. China has been spending heavily on attempts to boost its domestic supply of semiconductors and lessen a bill that has exceeded the cost of oil imports. "In 2015, Qualcomm, another U.S. chip giant currently under antitrust investigation in Europe, paid near $1 billion to settle its antitrust matter in China," notes Slashdot reader hackingbear.

38 comments

  1. Antithrust violations? by superxstudios · · Score: 1

    Sounds serious.

    1. Re:Antithrust violations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do they allow thrusting in China?

    2. Re:Antithrust violations? by haruchai · · Score: 2

      Do they allow thrusting in China?

      How do you think they got to 1.3 billion first?

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    3. Re:Antithrust violations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now everyone will get to see whether a communist govt is any tougher on business than a western govt. Capitalists are going to be the same the world over. Will Xi be any different as a leader? If not, why is the populace accepting govt bullying?

    4. Re: Antithrust violations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They tend to disappear if they don't accept the government's decisions. China is not a democracy.

    5. Re:Antithrust violations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      China isn't a communism and haven't been for a long time.
      Cash is king in China these days.

      There is something with American education that makes people not understand that communism/capitalism and liberal/totalitarian are two completely different scales that can exist in any combination independent of each other.
      (I considered calling it democratic/totalitarian since you seem to think that liberal=socialism but I decided against it.)

    6. Re:Antithrust violations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's called "poor education" and cognitive dissonance.

      American live in a capitalistic, social darwinist, authoritarian society while constantly being bombarded with propaganda about being the "best country in the world" and how "free" they are - if you want to see the authoritarian streak just question this and you'll see. This post is bound for "-1 I disagree and can't handle the arguments".

      Meanwhile, they are the most incarcerated and spied upon people on earth, with more "security organisations" than you can shake a stick at, and definitely more than even Stalin could think of.

      Of course they can't handle the left/right and liberal/totalitarian scales, because of they could, their world would collapse.

    7. Re:Antithrust violations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is something with American education that makes people not understand that communism/capitalism and liberal/totalitarian are two completely different scales that can exist in any combination independent of each other.
      (I considered calling it democratic/totalitarian since you seem to think that liberal=socialism but I decided against it.)

      To be fair, the Russian version of Marxist Communism, which is what modern China started out as, states that totalitarianism is a necessary evil for the first few generations before benevolent communism (Smurfs, early Christians, New Harmony Indiana) can occur. So most modern folk associate communism (most-rightly) with totalitarianism, and have a long memory of China being actually communist.

    8. Re:Antithrust violations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      American[s] [...] are the most incarcerated and spied upon people on earth, with more "security organisations" than you can shake a stick at, and definitely more than even Stalin could think of.

      The Brits have us beat there. And the East Germans definitely had all human history beat, adjusting for computing technology.

  2. Bill Gates involve? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Isn't Gates helping push an antithrush vaccine?

  3. anti thrust has its uses... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... like braking.

  4. Antithrust is forbidden! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Only anticrush and antislash are permitted in this RPG.

  5. No more thrusting here ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Antithrust? Are only the first 7 words in /. headlines checked?

  6. About time... by The+Fat+Bastard · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Several years ago you could 16GB DDR3 memory for $75. Today you pay $150+ for 16GB DDR4 memory.

    1. Re:About time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      DDR3 prices are nearly as high as the DDR4 prices. Have you considered anger management?

    2. Re:About time... by haruchai · · Score: 4, Informative

      What the fuck does that have to do with antitrust? You're comparing DDR3 to DDR4 prices and not accounting for the manufacturing differences. Seriously, fuck right off.

      What the fuck, dude? I bought 16GB (4X4GB) Patriot memory for $70 around Xmas 2011 and planned to upgrade to 32GB, the max the mainboard would support once 8GB sticks were available and affordable. At no point since have I been able to find brand name 32GB DDR3 for less than 3x what I paid for 16GB.

      2 years after I bought 1 GB DDR2 sticks, there were several brands offering 4GB sticks for significantly less than what I'd paid for 1 GB.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    3. Re:About time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And if you follow the pricing some time, you'll see that some modules creep up at the rate of a dollar or more per week in selected stores near you, while for some other modules the cost is nearly the same at 4GB and 8GB capacities. $-virus has been released from the Dramdrella Corporation's secret labs.

    4. Re:About time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Several years ago you could what? Chris?

      There you are karma whoring with yet another fake account, you revenue stream hogging disgusting fat sexist tube of lard, Christopher Dale Reimer!

      You can be sure I will be watching this fake account too. I know this is you because you told me you were working on your freepass 11 file server and you are so dumb that you can't even masquerade yourself properly.

      Now, I told you I was out of meds last week and you didn't even care to contact me you lazy fucker.

      How many times do I have to express the emergency of the situation??????

      The python click script you wrote for my pheromone revenue stream web site suddenly stopped to work!!!!!!

      You fucking incompetent python script writer!!!

      When it works, I get 4000+ clicks a day on my pheromone revenue stream web site but only 5 or 6 without it!!!!

      Now, it seems like you dont care and that you have abandoned me you heartless fucking pig!

      Bonus:
      Here is a story that creimer told me when convincing me what a hard life he had:

      The tree was him and the tree knot was his butt hole!

      So, his uncle packed his fat ass with lard and with his cock! Not that it makes much of a difference but anyway, there it is!

      Signed:
      Ethell, The girl that used to love you and now hates you, burn in hell where you belong you sexist pig!

    5. Re:About time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple iPorn

    6. Re:About time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bad comparisons aside like for like pricing is 3x higher. 16GB of DDR3/4 it doesn't matter you are paying 3x as much today than a few years back.

    7. Re:About time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LMAO.. I always love you little boys on here running your mouth. In person you'd get a quick shot to the chops with that demeanor.

    8. Re:About time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod up.
      Fab yields and density have improved, the die size smaller.And USA put a duty on silicon blocks.
      As the memory price did not drop - and we saw this vitamin price fixing and airline freight - it just remains a case of how much China can prove because companies know to do this carefully. flash memory has gone down. HDD prices down- although there was a while where price was not dropping. Nice to see questions being asked.
      The other biggies for fixing is car headlights, and credit card interchange fees.

    9. Re:About time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What the fuck does that have to do with antitrust? You're comparing DDR3 to DDR4 prices and not accounting for the manufacturing differences. Seriously, fuck right off.

      What you didn't hear about it while living in your bubble for the past 3 to 5 years?
      The big flash and dram manufacturers gathered and decided to cut out the small fish and went price fixing to control the market.

    10. Re:About time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Several years ago you could 16GB DDR3 memory for $75. Today you pay $150+ for 16GB DDR4 memory.

      Supply/demand of the chips varies a lot from supply/demand of the DIMMs or whatever else they are put in. It's like comparing oil prices to gasoline. All sorts of things affect gas prices, like refinery output and shipping costs. You have to consider the effects of the volume of PC sales declining over the years, how many other applications for the same high speed SDRAM chips there are. If there's a smaller market for the chips, they'll cost more, and a smaller market for the DIMMs means they will cost more on top of that.

    11. Re:About time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What the fuck does that have to do with antitrust? You're comparing DDR3 to DDR4 prices and not accounting for the manufacturing differences. Seriously, fuck right off.

      What the fuck, dude? I bought 16GB (4X4GB) Patriot memory for $70 around Xmas 2011 and planned to upgrade to 32GB, the max the mainboard would support once 8GB sticks were available and affordable. At no point since have I been able to find brand name 32GB DDR3 for less than 3x what I paid for 16GB.

      2 years after I bought 1 GB DDR2 sticks, there were several brands offering 4GB sticks for significantly less than what I'd paid for 1 GB.

      https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/

      We can argue until we're blue in the face about the PC "dying", but with lower volumes, who in their right mind would be flooding the market with cheap PC components? What else do you expect, honestly.

    12. Re:About time... by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      As someone that has started to cart-up a new system on newegg, it has also come to my attention that ram prices definitely fucking blow right now.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    13. Re:About time... by haruchai · · Score: 1

      https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/

      We can argue until we're blue in the face about the PC "dying", but with lower volumes, who in their right mind would be flooding the market with cheap PC components? What else do you expect, honestly.

      I was more than willing to pay for a reasonable increase but not 3-5x for 2x the capacity. Despite the drop in sales of PC / laptops and the rise of tablets, SSDs and HDDs didn't have the same ridiculous gouging.
      Even HDDs got quite a bit cheaper per GB after the significant jump in price from the 2011 Thailand flooding
      https://www.backblaze.com/blog...

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    14. Re:About time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Want some apple juice?

      I have a business installing styrofoam nuns...

  7. "How?" "Like this white man!" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh wait, the anti-thrust kicked in...

  8. no more thrusting!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anti-THRUST sounds vaguely amorous..

  9. President Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To levy a 10% tariff on U.S. goods returned, and reimports from Canada in response.

  10. Long time coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This was already in motion long before any talk of a trade war. If prosecuted, this won't be the first time they've been found guilty of price fixing. Just look at graphs of memory prices vs volume vs stock prices. It certainly looks like constrained supply after alleged factory problems have helped profits.

  11. Shakedown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you see this as anything other than a shakedown you're an idiot.

  12. hypocrist compared to weibo, alibaba, etc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    chinese tech giants are literally protected by the government banning their competitors from the market.

  13. Huh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks who's talking about antitrust. After pirating technology by absolutely illegal means, China wants to pursue antitrust. My impression about India is way better. They are serious about IP and don't disclose it even in interviews and also IT industry is very attentive to stopping piracy.

    1. Re:Huh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      India is mainly software. For China to succeed, they need expertise on hardware, which they get by ways you state.