i assume by disable they probably mean, something along the lines of irreversibly contaminating the whole of the assembly line.
I’d be curious to know how specifically they’re going about this.
Ok winnie the pooh, like they are going to tell you
i mostly asked because other people would almost certainly have better ideas.
Besides, if whatever they’re doing wouldn’t stand up to “being public knowledge” it’s not a very sound plan lmao.
Or, this sounds like tactical planning in case of an invasion, to prevent access of valuable resources to the invaders. Making it “need to know” makes perfect sense.
yeah but that’s the problem though. It shouldn’t matter, why do you think the US is public about where it’s nuclear reactors are located?
Why do you think every country with nuclear weapons is open about having them? It’s not because it’s a detriment if others know about it, it’s a detriment if others have them.
China knowing about it merely makes it a MAD system. China knowing how it works would ensure that it’s almost impossible for them to actually take over the plant, assuming TSMC isn’t hiring idiots to run opsec.
Probably wiping process control code from the systems that contain tons of fiddly hard to find constants and other information.
Well that’s less fun than detcord or mission impossible style self-immolating electronics.
Yes, but Taiwan is not China and they need to be able to do that even if there are people in the building.
i wonder if this also includes trying to physically damage the machinery in order to ensure one hell of a time getting it back online, because theoretically once you wipe it, you can just start smashing shit together that shouldn’t be smashed together lol.
What would be better is polluting the software with invalid but still plausible constraints, so the chips would seem OK and might work for days or weeks but would fail in the field… especially if these chips are used in weapon systems or critical infrastructure.
this is, decent. The problem here is that it’s almost always easier to reverse engineer a system that’s partially constructed, than it is one that’s completely deconstructed.
You would ideally want to delete ALL software, and ALL hardware running that software, that would be MUCH harder to reverse engineer. Or at the very least, significantly more expensive.
although i imagine building chips to fail is almost an impossible thing. Cpus almost never die, unless you blow them up with too much power lol.
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I’m really hoping for thermite. A lot of thermite.
thermites a good one, not quite instantaneous, but still pretty good.
Would certainly be a good counter for hardware.
They could probably overload the circuitry to make it unusable. Or use like, IDK, mini explosives?
true, you could just blast the ever living shit out the circuitry, rendering it completely non functional. That’s another good one for sensors and shit as well.
What happened if… purely hypothetically… China develops competitive chip fabrication plants that exports at scales rivalrious to Taiwan.
And then fear of an invasion provokes detonation of Taiwan’s own facilities.
Wouldn’t this turn China into a domestically source monopoly of high end chips?
It’s easier said than done. A few key pieces took decades to figure out and even now many can only be produced by one or two companies, like ASML.
SMIC makes 5nm chips and is on the cusp of 3nm.
well for one, it would take probably 10 or 20 years to get to that point in chinas domestic manufacturing. As well as geopolitical situation.
They would have very little reason to invade taiwan at that point. So they probably wouldn’t.
And to foil your plan a little bit, the US has spent billions of dollars in recent years constructing new TSMC and i believe intel fabs in america, there’s a big one in arizona. And idk where the other one is off the top of my head. But we’re already chinas biggest competition in that regard.
They would have very little reason to invade taiwan at that point. So they probably wouldn’t.
Not about actually needing a reason to invade, it’s about the implication
i guess but even then it would still have massive political implications, including the US, which is incredibly messy. And taiwan itself wouldn’t be very happy about it.
Extrinsic factors are the most important ones for this kind of stuff, it’s why the vietnam war failed for us.
The US will rebuild their chip manufacturing somewhere else
lol, where?
domestically in the US? We’re literally already doing that.
We are nowhere near supplying chip demands for the US domestically, lol.
you asked where, not how, when, or to what level.
They have some parts of the supply chain in ROK, and they could move to Vietnam but they would likely want to be further away from China
It’s extremely inconvenient but it’s more convenient than going to war with China
Israel grants Intel $3.2 billion for new $25 billion chip plant
But Intel has long since fallen behind the pack of semiconductor manufacturers. If they could just do their own Taiwanese foundry, they’d have done it by now and reaped comparable boosts in revenue.
As it stands, China is the majority manufacturer of semiconductors - responsible for more than half of all chips produced - because they’re building foundries far faster and at higher quality than their American peers at Intel.
Taiwan is the only country keeping pace with China. Losing them would only strengthen the Chinese export market.
As it stands, China is the majority manufacturer of semiconductors - responsible for more than half of all chips produced - because they’re building foundries far faster and at higher quality than their American peers at Intel.
the reason why they produce half of all semi conductors, probably has more to do with the type of semi conductors they produce, mainly IC chips. As opposed to things like CPUs and GPUs, they’ve only recently started getting into that space. The intels and TSMCs of the world produce highly optimized designs and fab processes specifically for things like CPUs and GPUs.
A chip with 8 and gates on it is probably vastly easier to produce than an 8088 cpu, for example.
probably has more to do with the type of semi conductors they produce, mainly IC chips
The Rise of China GPU Makers: AI and Tech Sovereignty Drive New GPU Entrants
Two of the new Chinese companies have hired ex AMD and Nvidia architects to start their GPU companies, and another two use Img.
yeah, and they’ve released a couple gpus recently, all of which have been about 10 years behind in technology, and CPUs, domestically manufactured ones, are about 1-2 decades behind. Excluding intels domestic chinese cpus.
Taiwan is part of the US’s chip manufacturing supply chain
They already are, Intel is building new foundries in NA with government funding specifically for the purpose of not relying on Taiwan for chips. The problem though is TSMC has the smallest and most efficient chip dies, so everyone wants those chips, Intel still has a ways to catch up.
Probably wipe the firmware of the machines so they can’t be used.
(Fun fact: FIRMware is the in-between of HARDware and SOFTware.)
moderately chubbed ware
Just disable?
I’ve heard for years now that they have those chip fabs rigged to explode, as to not let them fall into China’s hands.
The US Army War College published a paper outlining the plan awhile back.
To start, the United States and Taiwan should lay plans for a targeted scorched-earth strategy that would render Taiwan not just unattractive if ever seized by force, but positively costly to maintain. This could be done most effectively by threatening to destroy facilities belonging to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the most important chipmaker in the world and China’s most important supplier.
I seriously doubt chips is the most important thing. Its more about Taiwan’s geographic location, being a part of the first island chain / line of defense. And just the fact that CCP has been claiming it for a while and don’t want to lose face (internally) by giving it up.
Also as a Taiwanese, fuck the scorched earth strategy. I rather the island be preserved for generations to come. The longest Chinese dynasty was Zhou Dynasty for ~800 years, but that was 1046 to 256 B.C.E., then Han Dynasty for ~400 years. It would totally suck ass and I rather not have that happen. But I believe the CCP will eventually come to pass anyway. None of us will be here if it was for 400 years, but I would hope Taiwan will still be around and just as beautiful and great in the far future. I’m hoping the CCP will disband yesterday.
An invasion would be incredibly costly, and would accomplish . . . what exactly? A final resolution to a civil war that barely anyone has a living memory of?
China wants TSMC. Rigging the whole thing to blow in the event of an invasion, and making it very public and very obvious that this is what will happen and cannot be stopped, is the best strategy to avoid that invasion.
(…) and would accomplish . . . what exactly?
It would move China’s adversary further from its shores. Just like how America doesn’t like Cuba being right there, with its rival politico- economic system, China doesn’t like Taiwan being right there with its rival politico- economic system.
China wants TSMC
I agree that they want TSMC, but I think Taiwan’s semi conductor disablement plan has more to do with guaranteeing international support for Taiwan than reducing the incentives for Chinese annexation of Taiwan.
What I mean is that Beijing can’t say to the world “this is an internal disagreement that doesn’t concern you” because if TSMC goes up in smoke the global economy is going to bottom out, it concerns everybody’s economy. The fact that Beijing can’t just seamlessly assume control of Taiwan means that the international community will not support that ambition. It’s like Real Politik, but with semiconductors.
Ironically USA initiatives to protect itself from the vulnerability of Taiwan by (re?)patriating chip production will be bad for Taiwan’s security… if they ever actually manage to rival TSMC’s Taiwanese production. I say this because it will demote the conflict from one of global interest to just regional interest.
But that’s all just my arm chair speculation, I don’t actually have any idea what I’m talking about.
It doesn’t seem like the suggestion would be to destroy cultural landmarks, or even the majority of commercial ones, just the key components of the island’s chipmaking industry that would incentivize an invasion by mainland China. It’s an outcome that no one wants, but remains sufficiently feasible so as to be effective in preventing such an invasion in the first place. If the current CCP is bad, one that directly controls the majority of the world’s chipmaking industry would be far worse.
I rather the island be preserved for generations to come.
im assuming they mean scorched earth economically, not in terms of like, fauna.
The primary benefit of capturing territory is using it to make money. And generate products and goods/services.
Also as a Taiwanese, fuck the scorched earth strategy.
I’ve seen people called Wumao for suggesting the collective suicide of the island was somehow less preferable than Hong Kong style reincorporation.
Folks are so terrified of Chinese rule that they’d rather kill themselves than endure it.
Its more about Taiwan’s geographic location
I have to agree. China’s colonization drive in Africa is a long term deal - and that means that Taiwan blocks China’s ability to exert control over the Indian Ocean (which will eventually become a necessity to enforce said colonization). China can play the waiting game now in Africa while the US and France wear each other out waging proxy wars neither of them can win in the long run… but eventually it will start exerting more direct control.
CCP has been claiming it for a while
“A while” as in about 400 years — that’s when China took over Taiwan.
After World War II, there was a power struggle between the Republic of China (backed by the USA) and the Chinese Communist Party (backed by Russia).
The ROC/US controlled pretty much all of China, but then the US withdrew support and simultaneously granted concessions to Japan (as part of the peace deal between Japan and the US) and the CCP/Russia took advantage. The resulting civil war “ended” with the ROC having control of Taiwan, and the CCP controlling all of the rest of China.
But that civil war never really ended - it merely cooled down and became non-military conflict.
The CCP doesn’t exist 400 years ago. The CCP is not China. That’s what they want you to think. It is really just a political faction that has taken the rest of the country hostage. For all I know the CCP members could be lizard people based on their inhumanity.
The ROC (originally KMT since it was also a one party state) has just as much rights to claim Taiwan as the CCP, and probably more, because they’ve actually ruled it.
Interestingly enough it’s the same kind of historical relationship with Russia and Ukraine, where Russia claims rights over Ukraine due to “shared history”, when in fact the details of that history supports Ukraine claiming Russia instead.
The U.S. did not grant any “concessions” to Japan, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally, and rightfully so, it is good that the free world eliminated that maniacal genocidal regime.
If they attack Taiwan and let the chip factories burn. Does that mean they only cared about getting the land?
Of course not. There’s glory, there’s internal CCP politics, pooh bear’s ego, claims over the South China Sea, reducing the US sphere of influence, the fulfilled narrative of a “united China”, etc.
China doesn’t stand to gain anything pragmatic by invading Taiwan. However humans, and dictators in particular, do not always act perfectly rationally and in the best interest of their nation.
Taiwan presents the same kind of military threat to China as Cuba presented to the US during the Cold War.
It’s an excellent staging ground for bombing and the mountainous terrain to the west guards it from effective retaliation.
Even without a big chip factory, it presents an existential threat to the mainland only really matched by Korea or the Philippines.
First day of job training is to keep the one machine running that keeps the place from exploding.
“Disable” like we disabled Iranian uranium enrichment centrifuges?
Even if it’s disabled, like do you really think they’d just install their own OS? Or find away around the part that’s disabled? Like you can still jail break an iPhone
AFAIK the optics have to be regularly cleaned, calibrated and replaced. And by regularly, I mean daily/weekly for some of that.
The process is a carefully guarded trade secret and intentionally difficult. The companies that own the machines are not allowed to have employees who are trained in the process. When you buy those machines it comes with a service contract from the manufacturer. And the manufacturer is ASML - a Dutch company.
Again, if THATS the case, then you just find your own parameters and experiment with your pwn till its right. You don’t give up on the last car on earth if you’re a mechanic and they took the battery out. You find another that’s compatible or research how you could make your own.
Saying that a “company” with “trade secrets” is just a dumb patent road block to scare off consumers
You underestimate how extremely complex semiconductor photolithography is. It is the most complex manufacturing process ever conceived by humans to produce the most complex systems ever built by humans.
China afaik is currently doing exactly that, as well as a few companies in the United States. Its not something just as easy as “experimenting yourself” (although, that is a very simplified way to look at it.) This is decades of research, with billions of dollars. Countries like China can socialize some of these aspects, and seems to be doing very well. It still takes time and money, and research. All the while, the current leading companies are still also furthering their own research.
The fact is these are high tech machines. To follow your example with the car, you don’t need to replace the battery but an ECU, for which there are no available design and you have no idea how to build it.
Add to this that probably if you make a mistake in your try, you destroy the machine.Basically what ASLM is saying is that they can brick the machine with a software update and even if not bricked the machine cannot run long without specialized maintenance and spare parts (that they obviously will not provide anymore). True, China can try to clone them, but even if/when understand how to make them, you then need to make them, a thing which seems out of question for now for China (else they already would have such machines).
i would assume it’s intended to be irreversible, like contamination to the point of permanent dysfunction. Though im not sure how that would be possible, i assume it is.
Media: So… you know those high-tech chipmaking machines? The ones banned for sale to China. The ones needed to make the processors for phones, cars, TVs, and AI servers. What happens if China invades Taiwan? Doesn’t Taiwan have a lot of those machines?
Manufacturer: not a problem.
Media: Phew. Glad that’s settled… Say, how come?
Manufacturer: (slaps the roof of the $250M machine). We can lock this baby remotely. In fact, here’s the remote (pulls out a keyfob).
Media: OK, cool, cool.
Techies of the world: WHAT THE ACTUAL FU… !!!
Techies: what if it bricks accidentally?
Manufacturer: *spinning the key fob* we didn’t think that far, to be honest
A few moments later
Manufacturer: *proceeds to drop the remote and accidentally bricks everything*
This is entirely expected to any computer avid person tho no? Its like all computerized things today. Military equipment, trains, tractors, cars, web services, phones etc. Everything is backdoored and remotely controllable.
Why I stay away from modern tech
I mean, I’d say that too even if untrue, if I were in their position.
This is a good thing, but it’s hardly unique. Any advanced manufacturing facility will have remote access to their equipment in case an operator needs reconfigure it, transfer data, or in this case if they’re invaded by Lesser Taiwan.
I’m assuming “disable” in this case is slightly more than just turning it off. I wouldn’t be surprised if the building isn’t left standing after it’s “disabled” here.
West Taiwan friend. Lesser sounds odd when it’s more populated and geographically larger. Though inferior sounds fitting
I hope its a little better than remote access to disable. Internet access can be knocked out and cell signals jammed. Hopefully they’ve gorba deadman switch and disable things immediately in the event of an invasion.
This sounds more like a deadman switch.
China should just replicate Taiwan somewhere like they replicate Paris, Venice, etc. and call it a day.
China already had 53% global market share in semiconductors back in 2020
The question is if their remote disable will be triggered before the US blows the factory up anyway.
Just add some brown people and throw a wedding. The factory will be leveled within hours.
You know what doesn’t convince people to rethink how they view America, or empire?
Arbitrarily inserting comments like that into topics where they’re disconnected and off topic.
Wait a minute…are you a DoD contractor whose mission it is to make any critic of America look whiney and detached from reality?
He’s not wrong is he though? And besides, what is Taiwan besides an American client state?
It’s wrong precisely because Taiwan is a client state…
okay. so let him joke about american empire.
Mitch McConnell’s wife and Trump’s Secretary of Labor - Elaine Chao - is from a family of enormously wealthy Taiwanese shipping magnets.
California is flush with Taiwanese-born politicians, business owners, and investors.
Taiwanese’s ruling class goes to school in the US, owns property in the US, and has a very friendly relationship with the American financial system.
I would put them more on par with Israel than, say, the Philippines or some Latin American Banana Republic. They’ve got much more influence over us than a traditional client state like Puerto Rico or Guam.
Neo-scorched earth policy.
Ha ha being British I read “chip-making machines” totally differently and thought “Bit harsh”
Why the hell would they advertise this is beyond me…
My understanding is that some of the benefits China would get from invading Taiwan is the control of Taiwan’s world-leading semiconductor industry. So making it public knowledge that any invading force (i.e. China) would not be able to take over their production capabilities is a small deterrent.
It’s a small deterrent for China but a bigger incentive for other countries to defend Taiwan.
That’s what some analysts say but I really don’t think China cares. They want the land (*it’s strategically important for naval operations) and a unified China.
This is true, China doesn’t care. I’m actually confused about the narrative around China wanting to take TSMC. Even the most cursory glace at the situation should make it obvious this isn’t one of China’s goals. This is because these EUV machines don’t work on magic. They work on knowledge and spare parts. Even in the unlikely scenario that China somehow invades and these machines aren’t destroyed by either China or the retreating Taiwanese, they aren’t going to be able to operate them and more importantly get spare parts to keep them running. They’d at best be used to disassemble and review.
All of this ignores the fact that China is already at 5nm using their own equipment anyway. For the extra 2nm of difference between TSMC’s 3nm to SMIC’s 5nm isn’t large enough to rationalize anything close to what they’re talking about. It’d be cheaper to just keep subsidizing the Chinese industry rather than invading.
All of this is to say, that China may or may not invade, but TSMC isn’t on the list of reasons. If anything, it’s on the opposite end. China has a LOT of motivation to bomb TSMC to prevent the west from getting chips as if TSMC is gone, then suddenly Chinese 5nm are pretty much the most advanced chips in the world (besides Samsung). Thus, the real conclusion is we need to invest in Samsung, which surprisingly isn’t happening for whatever reason is beyond me.
Keep in mind that the “nm” in the different company’s lithography process names are basically just marketing at this point, and don’t reflect anything meaningful about the actual size of transistors. As far as I know, we don’t really know much about China’s latest “5nm” process and how it actually compares to others.
And even if they did get the machines in working order, yay it’ll be relevant for 5 to maybe 10 years before tech goes up.
Chinese GPUs need to be tested thoroughly across AAA titles, Linux. Imagine playing Genshin or Wuthering Waves with those GPUs.
They want power and influence, I don’t think they care too much (or at all) about their citizens be it divided or united. Unless those citizens add to power or influence, of course
Yup, US gov is fucked up. Oh, wait…
Well, I don’t think any government is different in that regard 😅
Yeah that’s why they want the land, it’s important strategically for naval operations.
Taiwan’s world-leading semiconductor industry
China already produces over 50% of the world’s semiconductors.
Is it not obvious? To discourage Chinese invasion.
China wants Taiwan’s technology and manufacturing. If they destroy it, China will gain nothing.
Just like how I would like to advertise my new course on PUA and dating. Shameless plug I know, but I do believe the majority of humanity can get some real value out of this. I used to be an incel but through hard work, I finally figured out the truth via the red pill community and now run a Taiwanian haram of 12 Asian women (DM me if you’re asian and want to join, or want the link to the course)
Oh yeah to answer your question. It’s for the security and maintainability of the chinese government, pretty clever if you ask me. Now if I could remote control my wife(s)
The article is available only for registered user; does someone has the source please?
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