UK's largest chip fab bought by China-owned firm

[Tabbykatze]

As much as I agree we have to be wary of China,blocking the smartphone operations of Huawei seems to have been of no real use,apart from helping Apple. The block only happened after they went past Apple - it also mostly affected markets outside the US,where Huawei has more sway. It wasn't like Huawei or most of these Chinese companies have that much share in the US - they are mostly really popular in middle income and third world countries.

As I understand it from working alongside people in mobile and network telecommunications it was solely because Ericsson, Nokia and Cisco were whining that Huawei was getting so big and were able to undercut them so much while Huawei kit being nearly half a decade ahead of the competition. Everything else was just collateral damage.

Most of the UK telecommunications moved over to Huawei comms systems because they it was time for replace and they were cheap and worked great. I mean, most of the old kit was Nortel based and you ain't gonna get replacement kit outta them!!!

[nobodyspecial]

For now, it's Japanese owned unless authorisation is giving to Nvidia to acquire them
<snip>
.

<snip>
Basically this is the beginning of the end of ARM IMHO. No country will want to be using ARM for important national products,because its very easy for the US not to allow export authorisations.
It could literally be a whole airliner for example,especially if a key part of the flight control system uses a chip that can't be substituted. IIRC,this has been done before.

As much as I agree we have to be wary of China,blocking the smartphone operations of Huawei seems to have been of no real use,apart from helping Apple. The block only happened after they went past Apple - it also mostly affected markets outside the US,where Huawei has more sway. It wasn't like Huawei or most of these Chinese companies have that much share in the US - they are mostly really popular in middle income and third world countries.

If anything,it seems even the EU and India,are moving towards RISC V.

I wonder how long before Reaction Engines is also swallowed up by a foreign company??

ROFL. Did they stop using Intel because it's USA? Nope. Intel just had 3 record NET INCOME years (while being beating to death by AMD...LOL). BTW, simply helping apple and killing huawei, is a good thing no matter how you slice it. USA or china...Easy decision for me. The whole world should ban China telecom/networking stuff, period. It's bad enough with NSA traffic shaping to break laws etc (push traffic outside USA then capture it before it comes back in, kill the patriot act, it's only used on USA), do you want china owning all your data too? Q2 2020 they had near 19% of the entire market (doubled in 3yrs). No point in helping them take out the rest, I mean at some point, they WOULD take USA out. Better to block them from the most lucrative market on earth forever now or until 100mil communists in china are dead? Whichever works. Kick them out of the WTO, that might stop the incoming war, which is coming at some point, they won't let it go.

To any fools who thinks china can't compete with TSMC. I'll remind you China thinks TSMC lives on their land and is currently prepping for an invasion to take their fabs (Just a more open THEFT in this case than stealing via cyber). What happens when china owns all the fabs in Taiwan? Are people really this dumb/ignorant? Never heard of the china plans? 2050 mean anything? China plans to rule the world by 2049 and if we don't start trying to stop them for real, they will take over everything. USA won't be there to help anyone. Anyone thinking USA going down is a good idea, is stupid or our enemy. PERIOD. You should be voting for USA to pull it's head out of it's arse and remove all voting machines, re-install trump (he won, it's obvious to over half the USA) and get back to destroying china.

Dems wanted to count every vote in USA, until we decided to WATCH the count ourselves...ROFL. Why so afraid to show FULL FORENSIC AUDITS with 24hr cams with teams WE choose? Ah right, can't fake an audit with US actually able to watch this time. We don't have elections today, and haven't for probably decades (obama never won, machines did it IMHO). The machines and who is behind them, choose for you, in your country too, if you have them. REMOVE ALL MACHINES, count by hand, 100% paper, voter ID or no vote. 100+ lawyers showed up in AZ when we got rid of THEIR chosen auditors who are not even capable of doing an audit (no certification for that, they don't even claim to do it, but hired by AZ?) and picked our OWN team...LOL.

I don't know why anyone would invest in Taiwan today. I'm even talking TSMC (just announced expansion there), idiots, Biden won't defend you and companies rule congress not the people. You should know now, Taiwan is gone already without a TRUMP in office. China will do the math and make a decision to take Taiwan expecting the same response as when russia took Crimea. Tents and blankets were sent (that will defend you)...LOL. Trump would BOMB you and we'd win via air war. 350+ F35's take your entire air force down before you even know they are in the air. After that I'd destroy all military buildings etc and bomb all tech areas/buildings. Free the people and give them our constitution to follow. IF they don't like our constitution/freedom, then finish the job. Yeah, 1.3B, gone. Consider it our Hiroshima/Nagasaki moment that teaches everyone else once more, stay off our lawn. That is how you win a war fast. Overwhelming destruction, and the fear of GOD in every other enemy on earth. Google how long it took them to give up after 2 bombs. It sucks to have to kill people, but at some point we have no choice here and I don't want it taking 15yrs+trillions+lost soldiers.

China purposely killed ~550K of our citizens and steal us blind daily (how many of yours wherever you are died? They let their people fly everywhere knowing what it would cost YOU, your country etc). When do we say it is time for WAR? You have been at WAR with USA (whole world really, they want it all) for decades, and we still do nothing. Is it comic we paid to develop the virus they used on us? Did our 3 letter agencies do it just to get rid of trump risking all our lives? Sure looks that way now. Jan 6 deal was FBI also, again, just to make trump look bad. Leader of OathKeepers is FBI informant...LOL. IF it wasn't smacking me in the face daily, it would be tough to believe all the corruption, but jeez, it is totally out of control now. It took us 6 months to even see our votes in AZ, and they are still battling us DAILY here.

Fakebook, would put up a popup for this post asking you to report me for being an extremist...LOL. We are not USA anymore until we get rid of machines, require ID for voting, and disband 3 letter agencies that are not part of the founding fathers idea of govt and are working AGAINST USA citizens and our rights! Fakebook's new tactic is rat out your neighbor crap etc pull to divide everyone even more. Divided we fall...We really need to put down fakebook, google, instagram, twitter permanently. No domains, gone, and assets given to people in tax rebates. They stole our info, & sold it to everyone they could (not mine, I have no rubbish media accounts), we should get their assets distributed to any family making less than 100K

Too much of a wimp for war? OK, band together and kick them out of the WTO and block all trading with china until we knock them back into 90B economy with no tech. You can do it either way, but if you don't do one or the other, it's over by 2050 and probably not long after Taiwan is taken really. All of those chips from the best nodes would go to china then. Talk about a wafer shortage...pffftt...Incoming. Made in China 2025 mean anything? Wake up people. Stop selling out to china. Some markets aren't worth being in.

[LSG501]

Agreed, but investing in the right stuff, assuming we can actually do a good enough job. The last thing we need is to sink billions into the tech equivalent of British Leyland .... though it would give our international competitors a good laugh.

We don't actually need to physically invest so to speak, just make it more appealing for them to come here, things like 'friends rates' on taxes, easier access to planning etc, basically make their life easier and better off being here than elsewhere...obviously with caveats to protect our interests, especially in time of need.

Essentially I'm all for giving 'incentives' to improve the overall position of the UK for when the inevitable shortages or disagreements over supply etc (like there was with az vaccine) pop up again in the future.

[ohmaheid]

ROFL. Did they stop using Intel because it's USA? Nope. Intel just had 3 record NET INCOME years (while being beating to death by AMD...LOL). BTW, simply helping apple and killing huawei, is a good thing no matter how you slice it. USA or china...Easy decision for me. The whole world should ban China telecom/networking stuff, period. It's bad enough with NSA traffic shaping to break laws etc (push traffic outside USA then capture it before it comes back in, kill the patriot act, it's only used on USA), do you want china owning all your data too? Q2 2020 they had near 19% of the entire market (doubled in 3yrs). No point in helping them take out the rest, I mean at some point, they WOULD take USA out. Better to block them from the most lucrative market on earth forever now or until 100mil communists in china are dead? Whichever works. Kick them out of the WTO, that might stop the incoming war, which is coming at some point, they won't let it go.

To any fools who thinks china can't compete with TSMC. I'll remind you China thinks TSMC lives on their land and is currently prepping for an invasion to take their fabs (Just a more open THEFT in this case than stealing via cyber). What happens when china owns all the fabs in Taiwan? Are people really this dumb/ignorant? Never heard of the china plans? 2050 mean anything? China plans to rule the world by 2049 and if we don't start trying to stop them for real, they will take over everything. USA won't be there to help anyone. Anyone thinking USA going down is a good idea, is stupid or our enemy. PERIOD. You should be voting for USA to pull it's head out of it's arse and remove all voting machines, re-install trump (he won, it's obvious to over half the USA) and get back to destroying china.

Dems wanted to count every vote in USA, until we decided to WATCH the count ourselves...ROFL. Why so afraid to show FULL FORENSIC AUDITS with 24hr cams with teams WE choose? Ah right, can't fake an audit with US actually able to watch this time. We don't have elections today, and haven't for probably decades (obama never won, machines did it IMHO). The machines and who is behind them, choose for you, in your country too, if you have them. REMOVE ALL MACHINES, count by hand, 100% paper, voter ID or no vote. 100+ lawyers showed up in AZ when we got rid of THEIR chosen auditors who are not even capable of doing an audit (no certification for that, they don't even claim to do it, but hired by AZ?) and picked our OWN team...LOL.

I don't know why anyone would invest in Taiwan today. I'm even talking TSMC (just announced expansion there), idiots, Biden won't defend you and companies rule congress not the people. You should know now, Taiwan is gone already without a TRUMP in office. China will do the math and make a decision to take Taiwan expecting the same response as when russia took Crimea. Tents and blankets were sent (that will defend you)...LOL. Trump would BOMB you and we'd win via air war. 350+ F35's take your entire air force down before you even know they are in the air. After that I'd destroy all military buildings etc and bomb all tech areas/buildings. Free the people and give them our constitution to follow. IF they don't like our constitution/freedom, then finish the job. Yeah, 1.3B, gone. Consider it our Hiroshima/Nagasaki moment that teaches everyone else once more, stay off our lawn. That is how you win a war fast. Overwhelming destruction, and the fear of GOD in every other enemy on earth. Google how long it took them to give up after 2 bombs. It sucks to have to kill people, but at some point we have no choice here and I don't want it taking 15yrs+trillions+lost soldiers.

China purposely killed ~550K of our citizens and steal us blind daily (how many of yours wherever you are died? They let their people fly everywhere knowing what it would cost YOU, your country etc). When do we say it is time for WAR? You have been at WAR with USA (whole world really, they want it all) for decades, and we still do nothing. Is it comic we paid to develop the virus they used on us? Did our 3 letter agencies do it just to get rid of trump risking all our lives? Sure looks that way now. Jan 6 deal was FBI also, again, just to make trump look bad. Leader of OathKeepers is FBI informant...LOL. IF it wasn't smacking me in the face daily, it would be tough to believe all the corruption, but jeez, it is totally out of control now. It took us 6 months to even see our votes in AZ, and they are still battling us DAILY here.

Fakebook, would put up a popup for this post asking you to report me for being an extremist...LOL. We are not USA anymore until we get rid of machines, require ID for voting, and disband 3 letter agencies that are not part of the founding fathers idea of govt and are working AGAINST USA citizens and our rights! Fakebook's new tactic is rat out your neighbor crap etc pull to divide everyone even more. Divided we fall...We really need to put down fakebook, google, instagram, twitter permanently. No domains, gone, and assets given to people in tax rebates. They stole our info, & sold it to everyone they could (not mine, I have no rubbish media accounts), we should get their assets distributed to any family making less than 100K

Too much of a wimp for war? OK, band together and kick them out of the WTO and block all trading with china until we knock them back into 90B economy with no tech. You can do it either way, but if you don't do one or the other, it's over by 2050 and probably not long after Taiwan is taken really. All of those chips from the best nodes would go to china then. Talk about a wafer shortage...pffftt...Incoming. Made in China 2025 mean anything? Wake up people. Stop selling out to china. Some markets aren't worth being in.

What lunatic asylum are you posting from??

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

ROFL. Did they stop using Intel because it's USA? Nope. Intel just had 3 record NET INCOME years (while being beating to death by AMD...LOL). BTW, simply helping apple and killing huawei, is a good thing no matter how you slice it. USA or china...Easy decision for me. The whole world should ban China telecom/networking stuff, period. It's bad enough with NSA traffic shaping to break laws etc (push traffic outside USA then capture it before it comes back in, kill the patriot act, it's only used on USA), do you want china owning all your data too? Q2 2020 they had near 19% of the entire market (doubled in 3yrs). No point in helping them take out the rest, I mean at some point, they WOULD take USA out. Better to block them from the most lucrative market on earth forever now or until 100mil communists in china are dead? Whichever works. Kick them out of the WTO, that might stop the incoming war, which is coming at some point, they won't let it go.

To any fools who thinks china can't compete with TSMC. I'll remind you China thinks TSMC lives on their land and is currently prepping for an invasion to take their fabs (Just a more open THEFT in this case than stealing via cyber). What happens when china owns all the fabs in Taiwan? Are people really this dumb/ignorant? Never heard of the china plans? 2050 mean anything? China plans to rule the world by 2049 and if we don't start trying to stop them for real, they will take over everything. USA won't be there to help anyone. Anyone thinking USA going down is a good idea, is stupid or our enemy. PERIOD. You should be voting for USA to pull it's head out of it's arse and remove all voting machines, re-install trump (he won, it's obvious to over half the USA) and get back to destroying china.

Dems wanted to count every vote in USA, until we decided to WATCH the count ourselves...ROFL. Why so afraid to show FULL FORENSIC AUDITS with 24hr cams with teams WE choose? Ah right, can't fake an audit with US actually able to watch this time. We don't have elections today, and haven't for probably decades (obama never won, machines did it IMHO). The machines and who is behind them, choose for you, in your country too, if you have them. REMOVE ALL MACHINES, count by hand, 100% paper, voter ID or no vote. 100+ lawyers showed up in AZ when we got rid of THEIR chosen auditors who are not even capable of doing an audit (no certification for that, they don't even claim to do it, but hired by AZ?) and picked our OWN team...LOL.

I don't know why anyone would invest in Taiwan today. I'm even talking TSMC (just announced expansion there), idiots, Biden won't defend you and companies rule congress not the people. You should know now, Taiwan is gone already without a TRUMP in office. China will do the math and make a decision to take Taiwan expecting the same response as when russia took Crimea. Tents and blankets were sent (that will defend you)...LOL. Trump would BOMB you and we'd win via air war. 350+ F35's take your entire air force down before you even know they are in the air. After that I'd destroy all military buildings etc and bomb all tech areas/buildings. Free the people and give them our constitution to follow. IF they don't like our constitution/freedom, then finish the job. Yeah, 1.3B, gone. Consider it our Hiroshima/Nagasaki moment that teaches everyone else once more, stay off our lawn. That is how you win a war fast. Overwhelming destruction, and the fear of GOD in every other enemy on earth. Google how long it took them to give up after 2 bombs. It sucks to have to kill people, but at some point we have no choice here and I don't want it taking 15yrs+trillions+lost soldiers.

China purposely killed ~550K of our citizens and steal us blind daily (how many of yours wherever you are died? They let their people fly everywhere knowing what it would cost YOU, your country etc). When do we say it is time for WAR? You have been at WAR with USA (whole world really, they want it all) for decades, and we still do nothing. Is it comic we paid to develop the virus they used on us? Did our 3 letter agencies do it just to get rid of trump risking all our lives? Sure looks that way now. Jan 6 deal was FBI also, again, just to make trump look bad. Leader of OathKeepers is FBI informant...LOL. IF it wasn't smacking me in the face daily, it would be tough to believe all the corruption, but jeez, it is totally out of control now. It took us 6 months to even see our votes in AZ, and they are still battling us DAILY here.

Fakebook, would put up a popup for this post asking you to report me for being an extremist...LOL. We are not USA anymore until we get rid of machines, require ID for voting, and disband 3 letter agencies that are not part of the founding fathers idea of govt and are working AGAINST USA citizens and our rights! Fakebook's new tactic is rat out your neighbor crap communists etc pull to divide everyone even more. Divided we fall...We really need to put down fakebook, google, instagram, twitter permanently. No domains, gone, and assets given to people in tax rebates. They stole our info, & sold it to everyone they could (not mine, I have no BS media accounts), and even interfered in our election massively (zuck himself should be in JAIL or death penalty as a traitor). we should get their assets distributed to any family making less than 100K

Too much of a pussy for war? OK, band together and kick them out of the WTO and block all trading with china until we knock them back into 90B economy with no tech. You can do it either way, but if you don't do one or the other, it's over by 2050 and probably not long after Taiwan is taken really. All of those chips from the best nodes would go to china then. Talk about a wafer shortage...pffftt...Incoming. Made in China 2025 mean anything? Wake up people. Stop selling out to china. Some markets aren't worth being in.

What has this got to do with mobile phones?? If you actually read what I said instead of your ill informed reply,I said we need to be wary about China,but the smartphone arm is different from the infrastructure arm. They are not the same. Apple makes its phones in China,so helping Apple still helps China. They can easily make everything in the US,with the prices they charge!

Also stop acting like a massive Apple fan. Apple on purpose tried to BANKRUPT UK based Imagination Technologies to poach their engineers. This is how China managed to purchase them,and that also meant MIPS(which is American) also got bought by them. Guess when that all happened - oh,yes when Trump was in power.

Half of the reason China gets control of companies,is because companies such as Apple,try to screw over competitors. Then the Chinese see a chance and swoop in. So thanks to Apple China got Imagination Technologies and MIPS.

Last time I checked since the 1940s China was a single party state with poor human rights. It has hardly changed in 70+ years. So why did all the US and European politicial parties allow us to move production to China?? Because none of the wealthy really care about human rights - they care about wealth and power.

People defended our companies moving all the jobs to China,like Apple who couldn't give a crap about human rights. They made 100s of billions of USD from cheap Chinese labour and exporting all the pollution issues to the 3rd world. People kept buying all their products made on the backs of cheap labour,and them not even paying proper taxes. China got to where it is through the greed and short termism of our companies. They were just clever enough to exploit it.

Intel has significant investments in China - it moved Optane production from the US to Dalian in China. I didn't see your moaning about that?? You literally are boasting about their profits when they got rid of US jobs. Now they are asking the taxpayer for money,when they spend the last 20 years throwing money away.

You talk about Intel - they are in trouble. Margins are down,etc and investors are getting skittish. This was entirely down to them ignoring AMD,Nvidia,ARM,etc because of their short term margin driven outlook.

Trillions have been made from US and European companies moving production to China - those Chinese companies are essentially the same OEMs who make all those products,but cut the middle men out. That is why they are cheaper - it shows you how much our companies are having their cake and eat it. Apple despite earning so much more than Huawei,spends LESS in R and D. Where is all the crying about human rights for Apple? They have profited the most from China.

The fact is Apple/Samsung has ignored most of the smartphone market in middle income and 3rd world companies because they are more concerned about the highend market.

They left the market open to Chinese companies - its not just Huawei,its Xiaomi,BBK Electronics,Techno,etc. Google offloaded Motorola to Lenovo. IBM offloaded its PC operations to Lenovo.Most of the world market is dominated by Chinese companies which you would know if you actually travelled a bit in the world outside where you live.



Samsung and Apple make up under 40% of the global market. BBK Electronics which comprises Oppo,Vivo,Realme and One Plus sells more phones than Samsung or Apple. Xiaomi is going to overtake Apple. Tecno dominates Africa.Stop excuse making for Apple on purpose.

I have seen your repeatedly dislike lower margins. Guess what?? That means China sneaks in. This is exactly what happened with Japan and South Korea. They started at the lower end with budget cars and electronics and mopped up. So many US and European companies were so obssessed with the high end,they ignored everything else and went kaput. Its sheer greed.

Its pathetic when TSMC and Samsung are world leaders in fab technologies?? Where is the US and Europe - nowhere. The difference is Japan and South Korea protected their companies,and the governments made sure they could never be controlled by foreign entities. Instead of pathetic obssession about quarterly margins,they think years ahead. They are also not obssessed about short term margins - their outlooks are longer term.

Even their business structures are very opaque and this is done on purpose to keep the companies protected. The keiretsu means lots of Japanese companies appear independent in theory,but it practice are not so independent as you think.

Its why Toyota is nowhere near affected by the current issues,but lots of competitors in Europe/US are. Toyota always keeps an additional stockpile of inventory for scenarios like this - the others are so worried that they will lose 1% extra margins they have no leeway.

That is the thing - there are over 7 billion potential consumers in the world. If you CBA to target 80% of them,because the "margins" are not high enough someone will. So then crying crocodile tears after the fact it pointless. People like Henry Ford didn't care about margins,he cared about volume. That is why he made the Model T so he could democratise car ownership.

Its something our companies understood 50+ years ago,but now its all about stupid accountants.

This idiotic obssession with short termism is destroying our competitiveness,and wiping out decent jobs in the US and Europe.Japan,and then South Korea showed how stupid it is. We had warnings 40 years ago.

As I understand it from working alongside people in mobile and network telecommunications it was solely because Ericsson, Nokia and Cisco were whining that Huawei was getting so big and were able to undercut them so much while Huawei kit being nearly half a decade ahead of the competition. Everything else was just collateral damage.

Most of the UK telecommunications moved over to Huawei comms systems because they it was time for replace and they were cheap and worked great. I mean, most of the old kit was Nortel based and you ain't gonna get replacement kit outta them!!!

Not shocking - they are so obssessed with what the stock market says,they won't invest in longer term R and D,because it reduces margins. They are busy buying up their competitors,etc instead of innovating. Too busy with locking out markets because its not "high margin" enough. What China is doing,is the same as Japan and South Korea. We have learnt nothing at all. Whereas Japan,South Korea and China apparently have far longer outlooks.

[Kovoet]

You wonder why everything is going up in price. China is starting squeeze everyone and everything. We used pay £2000 for containers containing bikes and now since this pandemic they now charge £10000.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You wonder why everything is going up in price. China is starting squeeze everyone and everything. We used pay £2000 for containers containing bikes and now since this pandemic they now charge £10000.

It might be because covid has caused more issues then they are letting on?? Its not helped the cost of labour in China is going up anyway,and the environmental cost is starting to bite.

Its not just China though it's the obssession with short term margin growth. Companies such as Apple have had shares fall,even though they had record margins and profits! You know why?? Because Wall Street "analysts" predicted more. The current model is not absolute margins and profits,its the relative rate of growth of these attributes over time. This always means its a boom and bust cycle.

This is why Intel for years just innovated less and less,because it was profitable to do so. Nvidia margins,and explosive growth happened when they started jacking up the prices of their top end GPUs. GPU prices have essentiually doubled(and probably even more when a Titan is really what a GTX580 was in GPU level) over the last decade.

Lots of tech companies have never had it so good. The issue is we might be entering another bubble - just like before the dotcom crash or subprime. A lot of companies are not factoring people have pushed forward purchases and investments due to work from home. What might happen in another few years,if the rate of increase of demand slows,we might start to see some big problems happening.

[kompukare]

Its why Toyota is nowhere near affected by the current issues,but lots of competitors in Europe/US are. Toyota always keeps an additional stockpile of inventory for scenarios like this - the others are so worried that they will lose 1% extra margins they have no leeway.

Ironic since Toyota are almost the definition of Lean Manufacturing and JIT:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing
Maybe Toyota aren't blindly driven my dogma and are clever enough to not apply JIT everywhere.
Whereas most Western managers just blindly copy what management school taught them and keep no inventories.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Ironic since Toyota are almost the definition of Lean Manufacturing and JIT:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing
Maybe Toyota aren't blindly driven my dogma and are clever enough to not apply JIT everywhere.
Whereas most Western managers just blindly copy what management school taught them and keep no inventories.

Toyota are driven by actually looking at the market and not by just accountants and the stock market. They are still run by the same family,so always make sure they have systems in place to manage problems:
https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...go-2021-05-12/
https://www.autoblog.com/2021/03/09/.../?guccounter=1

CFO Kenta Kon said Toyota, famous for its just-in-time inventory management, benefitted from efforts to improve its supply-chain management to mitigate the impact of natural disasters following the Fukushima earthquake in 2011.

"We are now able to make assessments of alternative products in a speedy matter. That is one of the factors of us being able to mitigate the impact of semiconductor supply shortages," he told a media briefing.

Toyota may have pioneered the just-in-time manufacturing strategy, but when it comes to chips, its decision to stockpile what have become key components in cars goes back a decade to the Fukushima disaster.

After the catastrophe severed Toyota's supply chains on March 11, 2011, the world's biggest automaker realized the lead time for semiconductors was way too long to cope with devastating shocks such as natural disasters.

Also like a lot of these Japanese/South Korean companies,ie,keiretsu they seem to prefer longer term stability.

[kalniel]

You wonder why everything is going up in price. China is starting squeeze everyone and everything. We used pay £2000 for containers containing bikes and now since this pandemic they now charge £10000.

That's nothing to do with China though, that's shipping - problems caused by covid, brexit, port congestion and various canal blockages in the past https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57531716

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

That's nothing to do with China though, that's shipping - problems caused by covid, brexit, port congestion and various canal blockages in the past https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57531716

I did hear they had some serious covid outbreaks at the Chinese ports. Its hard to say because China tends to put a bottle on these kinds of things.

[kalniel]

I did hear they had some serious covid outbreaks at the Chinese ports. Its hard to say because China tends to put a bottle on these kinds of things.

Oh I'd be surprised if they didn't have outbreaks - everywhere else has.

[will19565]

insanity, why are we selling our assets to China of all people, a country who CERTAINLY is not our friend.

[Xlucine]

If you're wondering what kind of cutting edge process they support... 'from 0.18µm and above'.

So power, and maybe some RF stuff, but not much else.

GaN transistors have military applications (high power radars and the like), but China was the single largest source of GaN related patents 2019-2020 (105 more patents than the whole EU) so they've probably already got it fairly well figured out

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

GaN transistors have military applications (high power radars and the like), but China was the single largest source of GaN related patents 2019-2020 (105 more patents than the whole EU) so they've probably already got it fairly well figured out

Guess where they are used in?? Not any kind of radars. AESA radars.Improvements in GaN technology means lower power,and lower cooling requirements for the transmit/receive modules in such radars. It also makes them smaller and more compact.

This is especially important in aircraft.

[ik9000]

Absolutely spot on.

Problem is, when things are privately owned, it's hard to prevent the owner selling them, unless government (i.e. taxpayers) care to step in on some kind of national security (i.e. protect our capability) basis, and buy it instead. Do we want to start effectively nationalising loads of stuff that falls into thar category?

And this is a bit different to installing Huawei gear inside critical national comms infrastructure.

I have long argued for a list of critical industry that is protected against foreign ownership, and where necessary subsidised or nationalised for strategic/security reasons. But as others have said our gov is too short-sighted/self absorbed. We are run by incompetent clowns who follow privatisation and thatcherism as if it were a religion and only care about their narcissitic egos. They'd sell their own grandmothers if they thought it would benefit them.

Some argue China is playing a long game. Once they have enough critical industry in their pocket, power, infrastructure, steel production etc, they will ramp the price, extort, and turn off the tap if people protest. Try fighting a modern war where you can't build the machines to fight it without the silicon and steel production required. Or try feeding your population without power to any of the dockyard cranes you need to unload the ships importing all the produce because you made uk farming and fishing an unviable proposition. The financial services and city suits won't be any use to you then.