U.S. Unveils Massive Export Restrictions on China's Chip Industry Targeting 140 Firms

erek

erek

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Dec 19, 2005
Messages
12,441
"Among the measures are limits on high-bandwidth memory (HBM) shipments. The latest round of regulations will limit memory used in AI chips compliant with "HBM 2" and more advanced versions. Even if Micron in the US and South Korean memory giants Samsung and SK hynix are all manufacturing HBM products, reports indicate that Samsung will be the most affected. According to sources cited by Reuters, China's chip demand is focused primarily on the HBM2E, which is two generations after the current state-of-the-art HBM3e. Moreover, for the first time, two chip investment companies have been included on the Entity List, Chinese private equity firm Wise Road Capital and technology company Wingtech Technology."

Source: https://www.techpowerup.com/329401/...s-on-chinas-chip-industry-targeting-140-firms
 
how ? would there be zero restriction and china could simply be free to buy what the point of invading Taiwan ....

In a world of restriction, it make a lot of sense to do so and if American destroy the fabs, they loose nothing (while gaining a lot of relative advantage to the rest of the world that lost stuff).

Doing full on economical war like that is not necessarily a good peace plan.
 
What's the over under on whether the sanctioned companies can evade these restrictions faster than Denuvo DRM tends to get cracked?

Secondarily how much of a boost do you think the national government will give to SMIC's spycraft budget to up the espionage on everything chip fab related?
 
Teenyman45 said:
What's the over under on whether the sanctioned companies can evade these restrictions faster than Denuvo DRM tends to get cracked?

Secondarily how much of a boost do you think the national government will give to SMIC's spycraft budget to up the espionage on everything chip fab related?
Click to expand...
Nobody said that this situation will be pretty all the time. But the way that China wants to "own" all neighbors, and basically bankrupt all the other countries, this action (and more to come no doubt) are necessary.
 
The revitalization of domestic rare earth mineral production will continue apparently. Not that the US has much to begin with. ie one mine - Mountain Pass.
 
Mega6 said:
Not really since the Mountain Pass mine only produces rare earth elements for high strength magnets. Important semiconductor rare earths such as gallium ect are not there.
Click to expand...
Im not an expert, but from my reading it seems like it is usually extracted from refining other metals like aluminum. From what I can tell, China only refines most of it, not mines it.

I can post multiple links if you want. Im open to being wrong, but nothing im reading suggests you're right so help me out with some sources that talk about how it's actually mined in majority and then where those mines are pls..
 
1.1.2.3.5... said:
Im not an expert, but from my reading it seems like it is usually extracted from refining other metals like aluminum. From what I can tell, China only refines most of it, not mines it.

I can post multiple links if you want. Im open to being wrong, but nothing im reading suggests you're right so help me out with some sources that talk about how it's actually mined in majority and then where those mines are pls..
Click to expand...
Pretty easy to google Mountain Pass mine and their company page as well as wilikpedia declares exactly what type of rare earths are mined there. Its ONLY APPLICATION IS STRONG MAGNETS. But don't take my word for it. Go to town and prove your point.
 
1.1.2.3.5... said:
Im not an expert, but from my reading it seems like it is usually extracted from refining other metals like aluminum. From what I can tell, China only refines most of it, not mines it.

I can post multiple links if you want. Im open to being wrong, but nothing im reading suggests you're right so help me out with some sources that talk about how it's actually mined in majority and then where those mines are pls..
Click to expand...

China currently has the largest known RE reserves on earth:
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/rare-earths-reserves:-top-8-countries-updated-2024

...but, it could the USA soon enough, if confirmed:
https://americanrareearths.com.au/c...ar-wheatland-so-big-it-could-be-world-leader/
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mega6
like this
Teenyman45 said:
What's the over under on whether the sanctioned companies can evade these restrictions faster than Denuvo DRM tends to get cracked?

Secondarily how much of a boost do you think the national government will give to SMIC's spycraft budget to up the espionage on everything chip fab related?
Click to expand...
Denuvo is not easy to crack. Many games made in the past 2 years have yet to be cracked.
 
Mega6 said:
Pretty easy to google Mountain Pass mine and their company page as well as wilikpedia declares exactly what type of rare earths are mined there. Its ONLY APPLICATION IS STRONG MAGNETS. But don't take my word for it. Go to town and prove your point.
Click to expand...
You're really not addressing my questions...i don't have much patience. Im not trying to be rude at all, and im open to learning, but if you're going to restate what you have already said then Im out. Again, no offense intended. I just have very little patience.
 
vegeta535 said:
Denuvo is not easy to crack. Many games made in the past 2 years have yet to be cracked.
Click to expand...
And many that have been cracked were done so only because internal builds that didn't have it got leaked and they were able to figure out the hooks by using the clean version as a template.
 
1.1.2.3.5... and Mega6
The US's issue with Rare Earth materials boils down to two major issues.
1. The infrastructure to process the minerals while meeting environmental regulations, it is an extremely dirty process when done cheaply, and very expensive when done "cleanly" and even the cleanest methods will get a lot of pushback. It would be nearly impossible to match China on price.
2. The locations of most deposits are close to major population centers, pushback from environmental groups is one thing, but when they are backed by angry HOAs because that mine threatens their property values and views that's a whole other animal and a political death sentence.

The jobs those sorts of facilities create don't offset the political and social problems for whoever signs it into place, which means it will likely get killed on re-election, and given the costs needed to start the process, not many mining conglomerates are willing to take that on.

This whole situation is a problem China created in the 80s, the price of the materials was expensive, new mines opened all over, and Chinese companies managed to get ownership of some critical mines in Australia, upped their output, and used the oversupply to crash the market.
Once the price tanked the US mines and processing facilities couldn't keep going and they closed. Once they were gone the price came back up, but the US facilities never recovered and were left rotting.
 
FYI - Mountain Pass, the ONLY economically feasible mine in the US deposit is weighted towards light REES like cerium and lanthanum. That's it.

Texas Round Top (currently economically UNFEASIBLE) contains a greater proportion of heavy REEs. Round Top also contains lithium, uranium, beryllium, gallium, hafnium and zirconium, all of which are on the U.S. government’s Critical Minerals list.
 
Lakados said:
1.1.2.3.5... and Mega6
The US's issue with Rare Earth materials boils down to two major issues.
1. The infrastructure to process the minerals while meeting environmental regulations, it is an extremely dirty process when done cheaply, and very expensive when done "cleanly" and even the cleanest methods will get a lot of pushback. It would be nearly impossible to match China on price.
2. The locations of most deposits are close to major population centers, pushback from environmental groups is one thing, but when they are backed by angry HOAs because that mine threatens their property values and views that's a whole other animal and a political death sentence.

The jobs those sorts of facilities create don't offset the political and social problems for whoever signs it into place, which means it will likely get killed on re-election, and given the costs needed to start the process, not many mining conglomerates are willing to take that on.

This whole situation is a problem China created in the 80s, the price of the materials was expensive, new mines opened all over, and Chinese companies managed to get ownership of some critical mines in Australia, upped their output, and used the oversupply to crash the market.
Once the price tanked the US mines and processing facilities couldn't keep going and they closed. Once they were gone the price came back up, but the US facilities never recovered and were left rotting.
Click to expand...
Worse behavior than OPEC.
 
Lakados said:
This whole situation is a problem China created in the 80s, the price of the materials was expensive, new mines opened all over, and Chinese companies managed to get ownership of some critical mines in Australia, upped their output, and used the oversupply to crash the market.
Click to expand...
From my short reading I seems like China is the major exporter because they do most of the refining. Do you know where the mines actually are and are those mostly aluminum mines or? I don't want to have to deep dive this if someone knows or has sources I can read up on.
 
1.1.2.3.5... said:
From my short reading I seems like China is the major exporter because they do most of the refining. Do you know where the mines actually are and are those mostly aluminum mines or? I don't want to have to deep dive this if someone knows or has sources I can read up on.
Click to expand...
LoL
 
Lakados said:
The infrastructure to process the minerals while meeting environmental regulations, it is an extremely dirty process when done cheaply, and very expensive when done "cleanly" and even the cleanest methods will get a lot of pushback. It would be nearly impossible to match China on price.
Click to expand...
This is true, but that's a policy decision that is well within the realm of options for the US that requires a healthy and independent supply chain.
 
Lakados said:
whole other animal and a political death sentence
Click to expand...
We spend a lot of time pontificating on policy here. If gas goes to 100 bucks a gallon, there's gonna be more fracking regardless of what any HOA says or does. If that number is too low, then 200 bucks a gallon. It will happen!!!

So china playing cheap with regulations to corner the market on refinement isn't an argument given the current political landscape.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: cycy
like this
Last edited:
1.1.2.3.5... said:
From my short reading I seems like China is the major exporter because they do most of the refining. Do you know where the mines actually are and are those mostly aluminum mines or? I don't want to have to deep dive this if someone knows or has sources I can read up on.
Click to expand...

This talks about the advances China has made over the past 40 years in the field. https://international-aluminium.org...uminum-Industry-and-Technology-in-China-1.pdf

Aluminum itself is refined from Bauxite, and China has huge deposits of it.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169136817305826

" A large number of bauxite deposits have been discovered and mined in China. Total bauxite resource is about 1 billion tons. Large and high-grade bauxite deposits are mainly distributed in Shanxi, Guizhou, Henan, and Guangxi Provinces, which account for 87% of the total bauxite resources in China. The main bauxite deposit types in China are the paleo-weathering crust and the karst accumulation type (Sun et al., 2018) with the former commonly rich in metals such as Ga, V and Sc. "

Guinea has the world's largest untapped supply of Bauxite, roughly 1/4 of what is known to exist coming in upwards of 7B tones, where it's estimated that there's only another 30B tones out there to get.

So if you ever wonder why China is so keen to be friendly with Guinea, that more or less answers that.

China though has a large number of cheap dirty Aluminum smelters that churn out mid-quality products to flood the markets.
China also has a large number of facilities out there for processing and refining raw ores, and they do it using cheap processes that are environmentally disastrous to a degree that China goes to great lengths to hide.
 
Lakados said:
This talks about the advances China has made over the past 40 years in the field. https://international-aluminium.org...uminum-Industry-and-Technology-in-China-1.pdf

Aluminum itself is refined from Bauxite, and China has huge deposits of it.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169136817305826

" A large number of bauxite deposits have been discovered and mined in China. Total bauxite resource is about 1 billion tons. Large and high-grade bauxite deposits are mainly distributed in Shanxi, Guizhou, Henan, and Guangxi Provinces, which account for 87% of the total bauxite resources in China. The main bauxite deposit types in China are the paleo-weathering crust and the karst accumulation type (Sun et al., 2018) with the former commonly rich in metals such as Ga, V and Sc. "

Guinea has the world's largest untapped supply of Bauxite, roughly 1/4 of what is known to exist coming in upwards of 7B tones, where it's estimated that there's only another 30B tones out there to get.

So if you ever wonder why China is so keen to be friendly with Guinea, that more or less answers that.

China though has a large number of cheap dirty Aluminum smelters that churn out mid-quality products to flood the markets.
China also has a large number of facilities out there for processing and refining raw ores, and they do it using cheap processes that are environmentally disastrous to a degree that China goes to great lengths to hide.
Click to expand...
Love it! Good facts. I am very confident we will be fine.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2013/3006/pdf/fs2013-3006.pdf
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/top-20-largest-producers-bauxite-122916608.html
These other trolls feel like they're from a China sponsored troll farms as they are objectively wrong and unable to support anything.
 
Last edited:

China is probing Nvidia in a major escalation of its chip war with the US​


https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/09/tech/nvidia-china-investigation/index.html


China has opened an antitrust investigation into American chipmaker Nvidia, the world’s largest provider of processors that power artificial intelligence, according to Chinese state media.

The probe serves as the latest escalation of a growing battle for AI dominance, which both the United States and China believe is crucial for national security.

China Central Television in a report Monday said the Chinese government believes Nvidia’s purchase of Israeli networking company Mellanox could violate the country’s anti-monopoly laws, though the report did not specify what the merger did to potentially break the law. China approved the acquisition in 2020.
 
erek said:

China Retaliates Over New US Chip Restrictions​

msmash 26 minutes ago		2
China banned exports of minerals and metals used in semiconductor manufacturing and military applications to the United States on Tuesday, escalating tensions in the growing technology trade war between the world's two largest economies.
Click to expand...

Pricing for key chipmaking material hits 13-year high following Chinese export restrictions — China's restrictions on Gallium exports hit hard​

News
By Kunal Khullar
published 15 hours ago
Prices rose to $595 per kilogram, a 17% increase over the previous level on December 11

While the restrictions do not amount to a full ban, they have created uncertainty, prompting buyers to lock in shipments and leading to price hikes. Gallium prices jumped 17% in a single week in December 2024 and are expected to rise further as global industries scramble to secure alternative sources.

China’s move is also influencing the broader critical minerals market. The export controls have sparked fears of further restrictions on other strategic resources, leading to heightened efforts in the U.S., Europe, and other regions to reduce dependency on Chinese supplies. However, establishing alternative production is challenging due to the high cost of gallium extraction and processing. Analysts note that ramping up production in regions like Canada or Europe could take years, keeping prices elevated in the near term.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-i...inas-restrictions-on-gallium-exports-hit-hard
 
https://strategicmetalsinvest.com/gallium-prices/

According to that, and other sources, China banned exports to US, and its primary allies, back in 2023. So this has been in effect. This current increase is almost certainly being driven by investors looking for a quick buck on speculation.

Since this ban has already been in effect we already know what to expect. What else can China do sans cut production? Which is fine, and it would suck in the sort term but such actions would just doom China long term as there are plenty of places to mine bauxite and zinc. South Africa is probably willing to do some messy refining.
 
The Biden administration did a lot of diversification of US supply chains where it could, at least with regards to things that came from China. Things will cost more, but most of them should still be available in similar volumes to what's required now. Unless somebody decides to try to start trade wars with all of America's allies, of course.
 
1.1.2.3.5... said:
According to that, and other sources, China banned exports to US, and its primary allies, back in 2023.
Click to expand...
It was a restriction (they imposed the need for an export license), not a total ban like the new announcement. Has the license take time to acquire it acted defacto as a ban at first and then a trickled down export for a while, but they got back over time to normal rate:
https://www.mining.com/web/china-exported-no-germanium-gallium-in-aug-after-export-curbs/
https://www.fastmarkets.com/insight...ueeze-market-despite-higher-december-exports/
The 7,030 kg of gallium exported from China in December is the highest monthly volume since the export control was introduced, and close to the 2022 average of 7,900 kg.
 
US President Biden plans to curb the spread of AI chips by Nvidia, AMD, others to China and Russia via a 3-tier system of trade controls to be announced as early as Friday,

Bloomberg reports:
-Allies see unfettered access
-Adversaries are blocked
-Rest of world faces limits on total computing power per nation.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/busines...r-limit-nvidia-ai-chip-exports-in-final-push/

Nvidia statement: "A last-minute rule restricting exports to most of the world would be a major shift in policy that would not reduce the risk of misuse but would threaten economic growth and U.S. leadership.”

https://x.com/KristinaParts/status/1877113540550533425
 
At the end of the day, this can only slow them down. Seriously hoping darpa has some really good anti-drone tech they're keeping secret.
 
Nvidia slams the outgoing US administration's last-minute export restrictions, saying they will only put the US at a disadvantage and push countries more into the hands of US "adversaries", by which they probably mean China.

https://hothardware.com/news/nvidia-furious-biden-ai-export-rules
It makes no sense for the Biden White House to control everyday datacenter computers and technology that is already in gaming PCs worldwide, disguised as an anti-China move. The extreme “country cap” policy will affect mainstream computers in countries around the world, doing nothing to promote national security but rather pushing the world to alternative technologies. AI is mainstream computing – ubiquitous and essential as electricity. This last-minute Biden Administration policy would be a legacy that will be criticized by U.S. industry and the global community. We would encourage President Biden to not preempt incoming President Trump by enacting a policy that will only harm the U.S. economy, set America back, and play into the hands of U.S. adversaries.
Click to expand...

What Nvidia is saying is predictably true. But it probably won't change the US govt's approach, even though it's futile and only self-harming. The US govt just isn't used to not being able to force everyone to do what it wants, and isn't yet willing to accept that that time is gone, so I expect more of this to keep happening:

1736608132194.png
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top