• Zedstrian@sopuli.xyz
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    3 months ago

    Protectionists complain about Chinese market dominance, yet Chinese companies are the only ones entering the DRAM market in response to the dramatic increase in demand.

    • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub
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      3 months ago

      It is way too late to be starting a new chip fab for it to be relevant to the current market. If they are producing reliable chips 5 years from now that’ll be fast.

    • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Understanding it’ll take some time for any competition to have an impact, it’s still nice to see that someone, somewhere in the world is looking at this manufactured scarcity and deciding not to exploit it.

    • mesa@piefed.social
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      3 months ago

      I brought up last time that if RAM prices keep going up and up, it makes more economic sense to make more factories/facilities.

      Theres always those people who say that it doesn’t make sense to make new facilities, but I really dont see chip shortages to stop. With climate change being a thing and supply chain issues popping up more and more, I just dont see an end within the next 10 years. Makes more sense to bring some of that in house.

    • TarantulaFudge@startrek.website
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      3 months ago

      There’s a reason. US is buying all memory fab capacity to deprive other countries, including China, from having access to RAM. The RAM companies, taking advantage of this situation and colluding, are raising prices and limiting production to create false scarcity. Unfortunately this means the average American has to pay arm and a leg for even small amounts of memory and storage.

    • Kaligalis@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I wouldn’t enter a cartel-protected market either if I had to finance that myself. If I had a captive bloc-sized market at home though…
      China is big. There are a lot of customers there. And the government tends to plan long-term and is heavily subsidizing chip making tech for geopolitical reasons. Entering the western market is high-risk. Entering the Chinese market as a Chinese company and then also selling outside China after scaling up is low-risk.

  • jaschen306@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    Even if you started a few years ago, you won’t get a working fab producing anything within 5 years and that is considering if it’s a 5 or 7nm chip. If you want anything as advanced as tsmc 2nm chips, you’re well within 10-15+ years.

    I live in Taiwan and have friends who work at TSMC. They are NOT kidding around when it comes to security. No personal cellphones. No smart devices. My buddy couldn’t get approved for a basic pedometer.

    • rollerbang@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’m aware you probably didn’t mean it like this (or maybe did), but it kind of sounds like you’re saying they’re better of not doing anything at all. Who cares about long term goals 🤷‍♂️

      • jaschen306@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        No, I’m saying this article is literally meaningless. Nobody knows what the hell will happen in 1 year let alone 15+ years later.

        Assuming TSMC or Samsung or hell, even Intel didn’t do ANY improvements or even finish the fabs they are CURRENTLY working on. Even with this rare assumption, Huawei won’t effect the market. They are simply too far behind the tech to be able to make a difference.

    • jaschen306@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      5 years if they plan to just stick with 7nm. 5nm will take a good 10 years and the even more advanced stuff is 15+ years.

  • khepri@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I know chip and RAM fabs are incredibly difficult and expensive to build, but how is the several trillion $ out there just up for grabs for anyone that can undercut the like 4 companies that have one not enough for tons of huge companies to say “I don’t care what it costs, I don’t care what you have to do, because even if I pay 50x what it costs nvidia to make a fab, I will still be scrooging like a villain”?

    • Kaligalis@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      For western-oriented companies, it’s a trap. All RAM makers outside China are in a single cartel. When anyone tries to undercut prices, they all lower their prices too and starve out the new competitor. Then, prices go up again.
      This is why only China can solve the RAM crisis. They need their own full-scale domestic RAM production for geopolitical reasons and are therefore not disincentivized by the cartel existing.