Chipmakers cripple products to dodge US China ban Systems that once contained Nvidia and TSMC chips, which are now restricted by the US government, are popping up this week with slower specs to meet US export controls to China and evade the hassles of obtaining special licenses. Chinese server maker Inspur was spotted swapping out the its A100 Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) in …
You really doubt that? This is obviously a dodge that the US government will presumably close as quickly as possible. They could say you can't offer something that uses the same chip offered in configurations that violate the rules.
There are legitimate arguments whether the US should even be doing this, but if they're going to do it having it be easily worked around so it doesn't ban anything is the worst of all worlds.
Who makes the money in this love spat? The USA and China aren't going to war or this crap so that only leaves the money to blame.... but who makes it? I see prices rising all over the place forcing people to up end their lives but I'm not seeing a reason beyond money and paranoia fueling this. It may be paranoia fueling money that's fueling paranoia, a sort of circular moral panic, but there needs to be clear reasons behind this "China Bad" if people are to care about any of it, and I care about none of it.
Even the rather small German Luftwaffe recently deployed five JÄGER90+Tankers to the Australia-Japan region. The German Navy sent a frigate. They operate in concert with RAAF, USN, RN, USAF and JASDF.
https://www.bmvg.de/de/themen/dossiers/engagement-im-indopazifik
We are in fact very close to a very hot war over the Taiwan issue.
Let's keep the petrol( high tech) away from the fire.
I remember once upon a time when certain US export restrictions were imposed but meanwhile there were official distributors of US products in China.
$JOB didn't ship the hardware because Export Rules but the customer in a restricted country still got the hardware via other means. We installed our software on their new shiny and collected the check.
I wonder how long before the U.S. puts a halt to this so-called crippling. I can already see the Chinese simply "overclocking" these GPU's to get identical performance to the model it was derived from.
What the U.S. had in mind was that the export of these chips would completely stop and only lower-tiered models would be exported, not vendors relabeling their products to thwart the sanctions.
>What the U.S. had in mind was that the export of these chips would completely stop and only lower-tiered models would be exported, not vendors relabeling their products to thwart the sanctions.
This may not be realistic. It doesn't usually pay to develop several distinct designs but rather build parts that are graded. This is why overclocking works -- the speed grade threshold are set conservatively because you don't want to annoy customers but that leaves a lot of wiggle room in the tolerances. For lower spec parts then parts either have fewer subsystems, slower clocks or disabled facilities - but the basic design is always the same.
The government is trying to control things it doesn't really have control over. In addition its trying to force companies to forego significant sales -- its reckoned that FPGA sales of $400 million alone this year -- without any quid pro quo. This is just asking for workarounds -- or given the way that things work in the US these days -- replacement of the government by one that's more 'business friendly'.
This won't work either, since the limits stay in place whilst the design keep getting faster and faster.
Is Nvidia going to neuter all its future designs just to work around the sanctions? What if the U.S. government finds out the Chinese are able to overclock or reprogram the IC's to get the same performance as the original part?
(*Possibly out of date info) Japan produces most of the etching materials for semiconductors, and has long reserved the highest quality materials for their own chips, which ensuring that the supply of slightly below top grade materials flowed unimpeded - or at least I was led to believe so by talking to people in the industry in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. Better quality etching materials keeps the defect rate low. That is probably why good expensive Japanese monitors have a guarantee of 0 defective pixels for 5 years, whereas others tend to have guarantees of no more than 5 defective pixels for 1 or 2 years.
So the US strategy might be actually effective - it depends on execution.
In the short term maybe. But it will force China to develop their own solutions and innovate more. Why the US thinks China cannot develop what they have developed is beyond me. In 5 to 10 years the roles might well be reversed and China will be denying the west access to their superior tech.
As the saying goes "Chinesium is the weakest metal on earth".
Of course they will try to do what you say. Until now their success is rather limited. Their key skill is treating their own people like ants(see the Covid lockdown terror and other draconian things). There is no such Chinese man like a von Ardenne, a Diesel, a Hoare, a Copernicus.
Their nation is based on brutal repression by communism. Great minds are destroyed by that.
Also, there is no honesty in Chinese Quality Control. How can anyone complain about bad quality, when the cause of it is a communist plant manager ? They still worship the Covid thing, even though 99,7% of populace is now naturally immune.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19latestinsights/antibodies
Ok, so just 95%.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/office-for-national-statistics-scotland-england-wales-government-b2031918.html
Or 98%, according to this source.
In response to a question about this in October, the Teesside principal investigator for the Novavax and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine trials said that the latest indications are that immunity from Covid variants is short lived, to the extent that they no longer expect to see "herd immunity" effects.
This is the same whether immunity comes from vaccination or acquired from infection.
Oh, and the presence of testable antibodies does *NOT* mean you are "immune" and certainly not "naturally immune", whatever that is supposed to mean.
We're in the 3rd decade of the 21st century, you appear to be living in the 20th century. You want quality and you can afford to pay then there are plenty of manufacturers in China who can do quality. You want cheap stuff and don't mind poorer quality, there are plenty of manufacturers in China who can do cheap stuff and poorer quality. IOW you get what you pay for. Apple can afford to pay so they get quality stuff - disclaimer, have never owned any Apple products, just assuming that their high prices has some correlation to their quality.
You need to get your skates on, otherwise the 21st century is going to leave you behind.
This post has been deleted by its author
when it was claimed that 486SX CPUs were merely 486DXs that had a failed FPU (and presumably there were some 487 FPUs that were really just CPU failed 486DXs).
Same way all memory is made the same, and then tested to badge the stuff which doesn't fail at higher speeds.
High end weaponry needs high end semiconductors for all sorts of applications. As both the Ukraine and Taiwan fires are very real, we (NATO+SK+JP+ANZAC) need to restrict the supply of petrol to China and Russia.
Also, other machinery, chemicals, instruments, consulting services, specialist information must not be delivered to them. This is the best way to preserve the current international order and the moderate peace we have. "Free Trade" means "putting petrol next to the fires". Or rephrasing Uljanow "do not deliver rope to the commies, which they want to use to hang their opponents".
You're confusing high end weaponry with high tech weaponry.
"… need to restrict the supply of petrol to China and Russia"
How exactly do you propose to do that? Right now, even after 8 months into Russia's SMO, part of the US' supply of diesel is dependent on the continuing imports from Russia.
If Russia is willing to sell and China is willing to buy, who is willing to stop them? And with which army?
Both countries must be denied high end electronics, tool machines, chemicals and so on. That would be used to build advanced weapons.
Just look at HIMARS - what makes it extremely dangerous is the reliable GNSS receiver and flight guidance mechanism. One HIMARS is worth easily 100 "dumb" rocket launchers.
Other advanced weapons need even more electronics+informatics, which I will not elaborate here, as we already have enough fires.
Diesel we can make out of coal, if push comes to shove. Look up LEUNA.
Even in 39-45, information superiority was key. Germany was bled to economic death by that. Japan was literally destroyed by information superiority. Everybody can now make a warhead and a missile, but only a few can deliver them anywhere, under any condition.
So, if information superiority is key, we must deny information and information technology to our potential enemies.
Kinetics has been secondary to information since at least 1939, maybe 1917.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
