my guess is it will pressure companies who currently hold on to their secrets without innovating (because they are the incumbent) to start innovating. If your competitors are on an even playing field with you, the only way to survive is to innovate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_Chip_Protection_...
Edit: The context for the Chip Protection Act is actually in Intel's primary wikipedia page:
"During the late 1980s and 1990s (after this law was passed), Intel also sued companies that tried to develop competitor chips to the 80386 CPU.[32] The lawsuits were noted to significantly burden the competition with legal bills, even if Intel lost the suits.[32] Antitrust allegations had been simmering since the early 1990s and had been the cause of one lawsuit against Intel in 1991. In 2004 and 2005, AMD brought further claims against Intel related to unfair competition."
Of course, now the effect applies to those two where people wanting iOS were stuck with ObjectiveC and ARM while people targeting ChromeOS had to support its ecosystem/model. Legacy effect just shifts here. Truly portable and self-contained software is rare these days. Mostly only OSS stuff.
Also the Chinese might catch up faster than people think. Two small examples:- Xiaomi's MIUI has really been one of the most innovative android ROMS out there balancing usability and functionality. Another one, we use multitouch IR-based components. Right now the top 2 most innovative and competitive providers are both founded by Chinese, although one is headquartered in the US.
Basically, the whole "Chinese know only how to copy" argument is an excuse to be complacent, made by people thinking their culture or genes or whatever will protect them.
Sure, you can copy the designs, but will you have the knowledge to modify them? Just playing catch up all the time has a major cost.
Think about code. Sure, people copy designs and code, but it's still hard. And even if you have problem X, and Intel doesn't, it could be for many reasons apart from transistor Y they have in the same general vicinity that you don't.
In a way, the blatant copying is good because it means that the Chinese industry has to go through less iterations to get up to speed. Hopefully the end result is a healthy environment with multiple players trying to out-innovate each other.
There was plenty of industrial espionage, but the Tu-144 is no more a copy than the DC-8 is a copy of the 707.
[0] no the F-22 didn't invent supercruise!
According to that Wikipedia article, the Russian plane was built and flown before the Concorde.
Two detailed articles explaining this:
I don't know any brand off the top of my head from China that is top-quality. Most are blatent, cheap, ripoffs of better brands.
Also, this is only an example of copying relatively primitive designs, not expensive R&D.
They spend only enough to get ahead of their competitors, which is why I said it's a completely different model. Progress happens more incrementally.
I've been to China many times over the years for business and I haven't seen anything revolutionary.
China's lax IP laws will only get them so far. If they want to actually become a real tech. center, they need to have protections in place for inventors/companies (and actually enforce them).
The other problem is government corruption, but this is for another discussion entirely.
Intel's advantage isn't their design (which was always generally one or two generations behind the best). Consequently, there is no point is reverse engineering it.
Intel's primary advantage is their manufacturing has always been stellar.
btw this year Intel switched to selling radio modules below cost, so you can expect china forcing them to another deal in a year or two.
Whether it is a good thing or not, hard to say. If it succeeds, China will dominate the market, at least the chips will be become cheaper. But as asian tradition goes, those investments may never find its way back in face of next tech revolution, just like how Japan dominate the analogue electronics but fail to keep up with digital ones.
Maybe, but by that time Intel will be on 7nm technology. Intel isn't holding still, they are improving technology rapidly.
Then when they have parity and we have real competition, it will accelerate progress.
If China tried to knock off major chip designs Intel or AMD, they could be instantly found out and banned from import to major economies. And that would include any products that used those chips. So no major manufacturer would be interested in it.
China would almost definitely use some industrial espionage and trade secret misappropriation. But they couldn't just do a knock off version. But its not like other competitors in this space haven't been doing the same thing.
Plus, you can't fully reverse engineer semiconductor devices. A lot of steps in the fabrication process don't leave any clues.
Finally, China is starting to develop a robust IP system in their country. The number of Chinese patents is skyrocketing. As they try to transition from dumb factory of the world to a leading innovation center, they'll want IP protection.
I think that money would be waste. While money is important human potential is the far more important thing. If we look closely a lot of governments,people claim that they will build a world class university which will soon be among top 10. Rarely anyone succeeds and lack of money is not the reason.
Same is true for cities. A lot of governments and countries have tried to build next Silicon Valley or next NY but none has succeeded. I do not doubt China's potential to create amazing things, but this sort of plan probably wont work.
There's one every season.