https://archive.is/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/02/huawei-raimondo-phone-chip-sanctions/

“The major geopolitical significance has been to show that it is possible to completely design [without] U.S. technology and still produce a product that may not be quite as good as cutting edge Western models, but is still quite capable.” Miller says a considerable gap remains between SMIC’s capabilities and those of TSMC, the industry leader that produces the newest chips for companies like Apple.

  • watson387@sopuli.xyz
    31·
    1 year ago

    I’m not sure why anyone ever thought these sanctions were going to stop China from making their own chips. There are over a billion people in China. Of course they’re going to be capable of designing their own chips.

    • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
      93·
      1 year ago

      Because they sniff their own farts regularly.

      What a lot of people don’t realize is that digital wireless communictaion is so incredibly complex that very very very few companies in the world can even design them let alone manufacture them. One of the mechanisms used to prevent the proliferation of this knowledge is the spectrum regime. Because normal people are not allowed to use spectrum they don’t own, it becomes very difficult for them to engage in experimental development. This means you need experiments to happen in institutions. And those institutions can’t use spectrum they don’t own either. So companies buy up spectrum licenses and then fund the research and development and then privatize the results and keep it locked away.

      Imperialists think this is going to keep the pace of innovation within their control. And they were right for a good long while. We still don’t have open-source firmware for chips that work on even Part 15 unlicensed spectrum, let alone on chips with proprietary designs.