this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
206 points (96.4% liked)
Technology
59374 readers
3714 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
China started their high-speed rail network by buying German trains, today their trains are faster than Germany's and their rail network is more extensive and cheaper.
They're investing in education, every step of the supply chain, and their chip companies, and bringing in foreign experts and equipment to fill in any gaps. That's how you get an advanced semiconductor industry.
Trains are one thing, modern chip fab is a completely different. Buying older equipment is not going to get them anywhere but into the production of chips that have been on the market for 10 years already.
This is one industry where each generation has hard limits for manufacturing.
TSMC didn't start by building current nodes, they started out 10 years behind and caught up, and eventually surpassed over decades.
There is a bit more history behind TSMC. You left out the bits where they partnered with other companies, like Philips, that gave them access to proprietary information. They continued building relationships with other large companies and investing back into their own business.
China isn't doing that. China has had access to older fab equipment for years but still fails to truly innovate. If US companies could trust China enough not to steal modern tech, there could be some real benefits to having fabs in China. The world kinda figured out never to send proprietary information to China years ago. Companies still do and doesn't take long for a thousand clones to pop up on Ali Express shortly after.
Don't you remember all the articles about how China had made unexpected advances last year?
I remember they finally were able to make a ball point pen all by themselves in 2017.
When I actually start seeing products that aren't contaminated with fake ICs or are actually grounded properly without hyper-strict foreign supervision, I'll change my tune. Until then, there isn't an article in the world that will convince me that China is actually innovating or taking steps to make quality products.