Let me give you a brief introduction. Many experts told me that the global chip supply chain in 2023 is already under great pressure, and the geopolitical challenges are even greater..
Through most of 2022, the U.S. begins taking steps to keep China out of the industry—even creating a Alliance with the Netherlands and Japan Limit chip exports to the country. The measures have prompted the once-market-driven business to draw up contingency plans to survive a Cold War-like environment — such as diversifying from Chinese supply chains and building factories elsewhere. We’ll likely see more plans like this announced over the next year. At the same time, punitive U.S. government restrictions are set to kick in and industry subsidies for domestic chipmakers begin to roll out, meaning new companies could eventually emerge, while others could be punished for still selling to China. punishment.
To learn more about how the US, China, Taiwan and Europe are navigating the industry this year, read the full article here.
but I’d also like to highlight something that doesn’t make it into the story — an unintended consequence of the chip technology blockade. While the high-end segment of China’s chip industry is affected, China may play a bigger role in making older-generation chips that are still widely used in everyday life.
This might sound counterintuitive. Didn’t the U.S. restrictions last year aim to hit China’s semiconductor industry hard?
Yes, but the U.S. government has been deliberately limiting its influence on advanced chips. For example, in the area of logic chips — those chips that perform tasks rather than store data — U.S. rules only limit China’s ability to produce chips at the 14nm node or better, which is essentially a chipmaking technology introduced by the U.S. past eight years. These restrictions do not apply to chips produced using older technologies.
The consideration here is that old chips are widely used in electronics, cars, and other common items. If the U.S. enacts restrictions so broad that they destroy China’s entire electronics manufacturing industry, it would surely provoke the Chinese government to retaliate in a way that would hurt the U.S. “If you want to piss someone off, corner them with nowhere to go. Then they’ll come and beat you up,” says Woz Ahmad, a British consultant and former chip industry executive. De (Woz Ahmed) said.
Instead, the idea is to inflict pain only in select areas, such as the most advanced technologies that might power China’s supercomputers, artificial intelligence and advanced weapons.
