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Comment by jsgo | Hacker News Reader

> As I understand it, the GPU world is full of patents and dominated by just a few parties.

This would be a impediment typically, but considering they're blackballed already, how beholden are they to patents? Block imports? Think that's being done already. Requiring US companies to not do business with them? That's being done already.

At this point, they just have to ride out the US/China trade war and then when things are being negotiated, I imagine a "turn a blind eye" to Huawei is going to be given. They're gimped in some ways, but in others they've probably never been more free.

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Actually, what's to stop Huawei from just copying and incorporating whatever they need into their IC designs regardless of patents? I can imagine foreign foundaries refusing orders from Huawei to avoid manufacturing IP infringing designs, but are there foundaries in China that can produce the chips necessary while ignoring foreign patents?

As an aside to that, how do foundaries know whether their client designs infringe on patents? Is there some sort of automated system that goes through the design files they are sent looking for areas of silicon that may contain infringing IP blocks?

>are there foundaries in China that can produce the chips necessary while ignoring foreign patents?

Realistically, no. The only two competitive, bleeding edge foundries are TSMC and Samsung.

SMIC are now rolling out 14nm - that's apparently competitive enough for people to still use Intel CPUs.

There's a very, very big difference between "rolling out 14nm" with unknown yields, performance, etc. Vs Intel's venerable 14nm process.

Intel is Intel, as unhelpful as that statement is. So these guys are starting on 14nm, while others are pushing ahead to 5 and below. Sure it'll work, but I don't find that competitive in an already crowded smartphone market in the next 2 years.

They've been rolling it out since 2016, better wait until their product actually appears.

> Is there some sort of automated system that goes through the design files they are sent looking for areas of silicon that may contain infringing IP blocks?

I'm going to venture a solid guess that no such system exists in America simply because possessing the IP to match potentially infringing IP against would be problematic for the companies it's designed to protect.

Intel: "Hey GlobalFoundries, you're not one of our suppliers but here's the schematic for our latest chip. Please make sure nobody takes it!"

And I can all but GUARANTEE that doesn't exist in China. Unless of course it's to pick up any IP they might have missed when they stole it the first time.

Infringement is detected by display of patented features or potentially reverse engineering relevant portions of an IC. There is no practical way to police infringement using the disparate array of design inputs mapped onto proprietary gate libraries.

Infringement would most likely be detected by reading data sheets and looking for similarities. Armed with that, an IP holder would go through the very expensive reverse engineering process. They're unlikely to do that unless a win in court is likely.

There is no easy way to check for IP infringement here. When the key idea of a design may be 100% lifted illicitly, the schematics may be somehow different, and the mask layout, incomprehensibly different.

You imply Huawei was playing by the "rules" and not already stealing. [1] [2]

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/us-indicts-huawe...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-04/huawei-st...

This seems disingenuous and arbitrary considering the decision to put Iran on a ban list was basically taken unilaterally by the US, all the while Cisco and Bluecoat were selling tech to build the great firewall of China, and a long list of other (US, Israeli, etc.) companies are selling tech to basically every authoritarian, oppressive regime out there without any legal or moral consequences.

As for Huawei, the fact that the bans and sanctions tend to be fluid and negotiable despite being called a national security issue kind of puts the "national" part into question. Someone certainly benefits.

And consider that the media does a great job in painting half of the picture. The other half is filled with the complete absence of articles related to US companies trying to steal secrets. The plausible explanation is that the media is heavily biased (in al honesty it's not like they could publish articles on active operations). In this context does it seem fair to judge having only half the information?

Whats arbitrary about pointing out a string of high profile reports regarding Huawei attempting to steal trade secrets? I don't see the same reports coming out of US companies in regards to Chinese companies.

> Whats arbitrary

The decision to put Iran on a ban list, as I wrote very clearly.

> reports regarding Huawei attempting to steal trade secrets

This is called a "national security" issue but doesn't appear to be treated as such. Which means the threat is not taken seriously or there is no threat.

> I don't see the same reports coming out of US companies in regards to Chinese companies

I'm not sure I understand. The reports about Huawei came from US companies. But in case you were wondering why there are no reports about US companies attempting to steal trade secrets there are 2 possible answers: 1) US companies never spy or 2) US media never talks about it. Which sounds more plausible to you? And if it's 2) I'll ask again: is it fair to form an opinion having only half of the picture?

"Tappy" again, plus a story from Bloomberg, which has shattered its reputation when it comes to technology/security reporting (SuperMicro, among other false articles whipping up anti-Chinese hysteria).

Ok, how about NPR:

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/08/730898429/huawei-accused-of-t...

Or ZDNET:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/huawei-regularly-tried-to-stea...

or CNBC:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/22/huawei-executive-accusetd-of...

The NPR segment is just repeating what Bloomberg said.

The ZDNET story is about a Huawei engineer ... wait for it ... asking someone at Foxconn about what components Apple uses in its smart watches.

The CNBC story is about Huawei and a tech company founded by one of their former employees suing one another, each alleging the other stole trade secrets. These sorts of disputes happen all the time.

You'll notice that nowadays, there's tons of reporting on every minor IP dispute or claim involving Huawei. At the same time, and I'm sure this is completely coincidental, the United States government is trying to paint Huawei as a "bad actor," so that it can be used as a hostage in the trade war.

Curious where I implied Huawei didn't before (merely stated the enforcement for patents, or "rules" as you put it, no longer apply because the negatives are already in place against them).

True.

If we're all just gonna take our marbles and go home, I guess there's nothing really stopping any of us from just making our own marbles.

Still pretty dumb to make your own marbles though. But I get your point there.

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