China's Tsinghua Threatens To Disrupt Semiconductor Industry, Building $30 Billion DRAM And NAND Fab

[It's me!]

China's rise in semiconductor tech is troubling. The US, and other countries, have been blocking their acquisitions of late, but they don't seem to care. 

 

Quote

Tsinghua Unigroup, one of the many tentacles of the Chinese state-controlled Tsinghua University, announced that it is investing $30 billion to build a new DRAM and NAND fab in Nanjing, China. The development comes as the company seeks to rapidly expand after its 51% buy-in of Yangtze River Storage Technology, which recently announced a separate $24 billion DRAM and NAND fab in Wuhan, China.

The NAND industry is falling deeper into the largest shortage in its history, and many industry analysts predict that we will experience yet another DRAM shortage in the coming months. Both the NAND and DRAM industries have consolidated down to a few key players, and predictable production output has kept supply and demand dynamics largely balanced for several years.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nand-dram-fab-tsinghua,33470.html

[2FA]

So more competition, saying that it will disrupt the industry is just monopolistic talk.

[tlink]

good on them, lets hope human living conditions continue to improve in china, they already had incredible leaps the past few years. didn't they eradicate 1/3th of extreme poverty worldwide or something? 

[Curufinwe_wins]

Yea, additional competition isn't likely to kill anyone. And stuff like this is high tech anyways.  Seems like a great thing for them.

[FPSwithaWacomTablet]

This is what happens when China gets turned into a manufacturing powerhouse... 

[Stefan1024]

2 hours ago, tlink said:

good on them, lets hope human living conditions continue to improve in china, they already had incredible leaps the past few years. didn't they eradicate 1/3th of extreme poverty worldwide or something? 

They doubled the salery of an average (factory) worker within the last 5 years. Quite a big jump.

[dizmo]

5 minutes ago, Stefan1024 said:

They doubled the salery of an average (factory) worker within the last 5 years. Quite a big jump.

It's still next to nothing though. The average Foxconn worker only makes $2US an hour.

[tlink]

5 minutes ago, dizmo said:

It's still next to nothing though. The average Foxconn worker only makes $2US an hour.

thats still above extreme poverty. yea its next to nothing compared to us but for what they used to have its quite a lot. extreme poverty is below the 1.90 us dollars a day mark. 10% of the world population lives of 1.90 us dollars a day.

[ChineseChef]

57 minutes ago, dizmo said:

It's still next to nothing though. The average Foxconn worker only makes $2US an hour.

 

50 minutes ago, tlink said:

thats still above extreme poverty. yea its next to nothing compared to us but for what they used to have its quite a lot. extreme poverty is below the 1.90 us dollars a day mark. 10% of the world population lives of 1.90 us dollars a day.

 

While I agree that they are getting paid peanuts compared to US wages, we have to give credit where its due.  They are improving wages, and that is good.  But no, we shouldn't rest and call it a day, always room for improvement.  But doubling wages is progress for them, even if we wouldn't think it is much.

[BuckGup]

Yeah competition 

[Doobeedoo]

Yeah it was funny the first time I saw the title today. So competition.

[It's me!]

4 hours ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

Yea, additional competition isn't likely to kill anyone. And stuff like this is high tech anyways.  Seems like a great thing for them.

The problem is that it is a state-owned company, so it isn't fair competition. They are laying the groundwork to take over the industry,  much like when the Chinese dumped steel on the US market under costs to kill competitors. Also, since it is state owned they wont have tarrifs, so they can undercut all US suppliers for in-country sales. Then, to top it off, as a state-owned company they will never be charged with patent infringement or other abuses, so its free reign to do...whatever. 

[2FA]

5 minutes ago, It's me! said:

They are laying the groundwork to take over the industry,  much like when the Chinese dumped steel on the US market under costs to kill competitors. Also, since it is state owned they wont have tarrifs, so they can undercut all US suppliers for in-country sales.

False equivalence, NAND and DRAM is already manufactured primarily in China and a few other Asian nations whereas steel was being produced in the US.

[It's me!]

2 minutes ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

False equivalence, NAND and DRAM is already manufactured primarily in China and a few other Asian nations whereas steel was being produced in the US.

It's not a false equivalence, it isnt about where the fabs are located -- they are owned and controlled by USA-based companies. 

[2FA]

5 minutes ago, It's me! said:

It's not a false equivalence, it isnt about where the fabs are located -- they are owned and controlled by USA-based companies. 

Out of the three major NAND manufactures, only one is American and that is Micron. The other two being SK Hynix and Samsung are South Korean. Location has everything to do with it because locations affects the cost of production.

 

EDIT: Actually Toshiba is rather large as well. WD/Sandisk has entered the market but they are still fairly minor. https://www.statista.com/statistics/275886/market-share-held-by-leading-nand-flash-memory-manufacturers-worldwide/

[TetraSky]

As long as their products don't blow up or catch fire, it can only be good for consumers.

[dalekphalm]

4 hours ago, dizmo said:

It's still next to nothing though. The average Foxconn worker only makes $2US an hour.

You can't just compare how much a Chinese person makes to how much an American makes. $2/Hour in the USA would put you in utter poverty. That's an hours work for buying some milk or bread.

 

How much does that milk or bread cost in China, by comparison? Purchasing Power is the important thing here, not pure wage.

 

And yes, it's still low, but they are making vast improvements, and if we don't acknowledge those improvements and give credit where credit is due, they may decide it's not worth the effort to try and improve circumstances, if all of us Westerners still call them terrible even after improving.

 

Baby steps, my friend, and at least they are taking steps forward, and not backward.

[It's me!]

21 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

How exactly does new competition 'disrupt' the industry and worsen a 'shortage'? 

 

Who wrote this? Some Trump supporter? 

you must not've read it. He says it will create a glut, which the other suppliers wont like. They didnt really speak either for or against it. 

[suits]

Fortunately Trump's policies should help with this. China has done this before, flooding the market with silicon, and it just messes stuff up for us. 

[dizmo]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

-snip-

 

And yes, it's still low, but they are making vast improvements, and if we don't acknowledge those improvements and give credit where credit is due, they may decide it's not worth the effort to try and improve circumstances, if all of us Westerners still call them terrible even after improving.

 

Baby steps, my friend, and at least they are taking steps forward, and not backward.

Haha, I actually regretted putting that as I knew I'd immediately get a bunch of people saying that.

However, living in China isn't as cheap as one would think. At $2/hr you'd still be able to cover your monthly rent in a suburban area, and that's it. No transportation, no food, no utilities. Cost of living has skyrocketed in China over the past decade or so, and a loaf of bread costs about what it does in Canada (mind you bread is a horrible thing to gauge cost as they don't really eat it) but other prices honestly aren't a huge gap that one would think. Somethings are cheaper, for sure, but it depends where you live.

 

They still have a long way to come, and honestly I don't think their economy can support wages around what we have here (comparatively, not directly). A lot of companies are already looking for the next cheap labor market. The Philippines, if it cracks down on terrorism, is a huge contender.

 

[dalekphalm]

24 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Haha, I actually regretted putting that as I knew I'd immediately get a bunch of people saying that.

However, living in China isn't as cheap as one would think. At $2/hr you'd still be able to cover your monthly rent in a suburban area, and that's it. No transportation, no food, no utilities. Cost of living has skyrocketed in China over the past decade or so, and a loaf of bread costs about what it does in Canada (mind you bread is a horrible thing to gauge cost as they don't really eat it) but other prices honestly aren't a huge gap that one would think. Somethings are cheaper, for sure, but it depends where you live.

 

They still have a long way to come, and honestly I don't think their economy can support wages around what we have here (comparatively, not directly). A lot of companies are already looking for the next cheap labor market. The Philippines, if it cracks down on terrorism, is a huge contender.

 

Oh I agree, that it's still not enough. But it's getting there. And if this trend holds, your average Chinese worker is going to be making a decent living wage soon. I also assume that the average factory worker probably lives with other family members, and they probably pool their resources.

[Tam3n]

"Disrupt" the industry... Yeah sure it's going to tighten the competition, but personally I don't find it troubling if they are able to relieve the nand shortage.

 

[deviant88]

i want 10$ chinese chips instead of 1000$ intel chips

[Bouzoo]

3 minutes ago, deviant88 said:

i want 10$ chinese chips instead of 1000$ intel chips

It... really doesn't work like that. 

[ChineseChef]

6 hours ago, Bouzoo said:

It... really doesn't work like that. 

Not directly, and not for Intel CPUs for sure.  But China owning the production companies will allow them to sell for below cost, which they have done before.  Which will force everyone else to lower prices.  They won't also go below cost, but people will have the option of cheap ass Chinese parts, or normal priced parts from more reliable companies.  So it will really depend on how important the thing is to you if you are willing to risk the low grade Chinese parts.