Douglas Buckland

The Truth about Chinese and Indian Engineering

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1 hour ago, Yoshiro Kamamura said:

Butthurt, but still lacking arguments? Must be one of the Oilprice's Trumpist old farts. 

I rest my case....

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7 hours ago, Yoshiro Kamamura said:

I chllenged this, obviously, Chinese has a desktop based on 7nm CPU, not 19nm, as you incorrectly state:

https://www.androidauthority.com/huawei-pc-1135257/

That's the meticulous, small work, you know? Fact checking pruning the big, bombastic statements that will show just plain false in the end. 

Does this chip challenge the competition? No, not yet, but the resilience of Huawei and the ability to counter the embargo by kickstarting and accelerating in-house development is significant. 

In general, I would not worry about the quality of Chinese engineering. They were able to transform a backwards, agricultural country to industrial supplier for the whole world, they scaled the production up like no country before them, perhaps, so I think they are just fine. I would not also worry about their research, besides having hugely motivated own young generation, they can always do what America did during the 20th century - they can buy the brains for themselves, because due to the trade surplus, they have coffers full of dollars that are losing their status as world's reserve currency. So they buy anything that can be bought for those dollars - energy reserves, tech companies, talents, patents, anything that has strategic value. 

Like your last fact check? This fact check is the shallowest that google an article that discuss briefly about an youtube in China, with a unfinished laptop that have the price tag and UOS (a Chinese version of Linux). Fact check is just a shallowest level  for simple person cannot dig dipper because it split the fact in half, and fact check the one half and hide the other half. You don't know the other half and call the half you have "fact". That's why many of small facts of yours don't reflect the situation but simply an empty banner. The on going in any debates are because of these styles of facts between 2 sides. You are not cable in digging and your strategy is find a point that you read different and find a short article against it and show the half truth. I cannot tell the whole truth with a few lines unless break them up like you can.

Here is the other half, that break down in much more details than  "You have this and I have that as well":

1 Huawei still can have access to 7nm chip, US didn't stop that access yet. The problem is for mass scale production for 7nm, unlike Intel when it say about 7nm it means it has the production lines to support the world's demand and  the whole supporting industries behind that and the applications of that tech and lots of quality IP behind. Not just import the manufacturing line and produce like crazy. That's why China still can only supply of 15.7% of their own IC demands even they are the factory of the world in many other things. The target of China is 40%of their demand in 2025. 

Most of the large chip manufacturers like Samsung,Intel, TSMC  are using EUV lithography, ASML introduced in 2006. SMIC still didn't have this technology for chip fab but using the old none EUVL. China tried to have one EUV scanner late 2019 but Dutch government did not issue a new export license to ASML. This is not only about productivity but the ability to keep up with the semiconductor size reduction. China can have 7nm from the R&D of SMIC but not be able to do it in large scale with current SMIC and they are R&D for that productivity without using EUV while other starting R&D in 5nm with EUV system and gradually phasing out of non EUV.

One change to new innovation and use that for R&D their future and one try to R&D to make the old tech to do what new innovation do.

2 Now about the  7nm ARM desktop youtube above. Most desktops using  intel/amd x86/64 bit CPU for Windows or MacOS and Linux. ARM are mostly use for phone with an ARM version of linux (Android) or Unix iOS. Huawei cannot produce x86/64 CPU for desktop (which belong to Intel or AMD), but they have ARM chip for HuaWei phone. Microsoft recently release Windows designed for ARMv8 SoCs. However, only certified SoCs such as the Snapdragon 835, 845 and 8cx are officially supported and Apple will have it first macbook using ARM CPU at the end of this year. No one knows the success of that. If it is so successful and proved to be the future, then very gloomy future for Intel and AMD. ARM tends to be used for specific designs while x86/64 is for general purposes.

Anyway, that HuaWei desktop cannot have ARM windows nor ARM macOS ecosystem, so HuaWei  has UOS (a Chinese version of ARM Linux) for that desktop. Do you think people will rush to buy that desktop when it ever come out? I buy a computer because I need their performance to run my using software. I don't buy a computer to write my own software on it and use it. So lots of up front investment for the softwares to be used that on the echo system before can have the money return from desktops and softwares, if China wants to start from scratch to catch up while the whole world keep using  and building Windows and MacOS ecosystem. 

But even so, If it is using ARM(RISC) architecture to make the CPU Laptop, that IP belong to a British/Japan company, like the Dutch ASML, their license for ARM can be stopped anytime and then all the investment using ARM license turns to smoke.

How many engineers China gonna buy to have what exactly what they have now, a big investment with the same current return? And the rest of the engineers on the world will sit and wait for China to catch up? See the different between the  " fact check banner" and reality yet?

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(edited)

I think there is a lot to be said about this. I have worked in the industry for quite some time and I worked with NES-IPS for quite a while. Their workforce was diverse and we worked across a lot of sectors manufacturing things such as inflatable seals. In my experience, I thought things were evenly spread in terms of where the workforce came from.

Edited by Ouallan

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On 8/8/2020 at 7:22 AM, Douglas Buckland said:

We routinely hear about the lack of American engineers and engineering students versus the Chinese and Indians. Read this:
https://www.machinedesign.com/community/editorial-comment/article/21829922/the-myth-of-chinese-and-indian-engineers

This may have been true in the past; I doubt it's true today.

Like Japan and South Korea, China started with low-end manufacturing. Along with that came first-generation engineers and engineering schools with a steep learning curve ahead of them. Decades later, China is producing higher quality products than many American industries. E.g. Sandy Munroe unequivocally states that Tesla's only true competition will come from China, and Apple manufactures its high-end products in China specifically because the price, quantity, and quality are unbeatable elsewhere. Now that China has had time to scale the learning curve, their culture of discipline and hard work is achieving results.

On that note, consider that a majority of "American" graduate STEM programs - even in the prestigious private schools - are filled by foreign students. IIRC, Rice University's graduate computer science program told me 90% of the student body were foreigners, mostly Chinese. In early years, most stayed in the US. Today, more are returning home. Why stay in the US when the cost of living is so much lower in China and the opportunity so much greater? China is also selecting foreign exchange students more carefully to ensure they have an incentive to return.

Even among American citizens, it's increasingly those of Asian ethnicity excelling at STEM. E.g. here's a picture of the successful "American" math olympiad team a few years ago. "American" values and culture had little to do with their success:
https://www.ewa.org/sites/main/files/imagecache/lightbox/main-images/imo_team.jpg

China has many problems, but a lack of high-quality graduates is no longer one of them.

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On 8/8/2020 at 2:22 PM, Douglas Buckland said:

We routinely hear about the lack of American engineers and engineering students versus the Chinese and Indians. Read this:
https://www.machinedesign.com/community/editorial-comment/article/21829922/the-myth-of-chinese-and-indian-engineers

Except that the American engineers are Chinese, too :)

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(edited)

On 8/8/2020 at 3:18 PM, Douglas Buckland said:

Does India have any nuclear ships (discount any bought from Russia)? Does India have any aircraft carriers NOT bought from Russia (that carrier also has a ski jump to launch aircraft, similar to the Chinese carriers, as they cannot build to the tolerances required for a steam catapult). 

Did you look at the requirements to qualify as an ‘engineer’ in the US as opposed to India and China?

High speed rail is not a necessity in the US.....similar to it not being a necessity in Malaysia.

Okay, I can see where this is headed so I will bow out early. Chinese and Indian engineers are the best in the world, bar none!

Nothing to do with tolerances. Steam catapult renders a carrier inoperative in the North Sea / Arctic.

There are no requirements beyond the degree in most engineering fields in US.

Oh yes, it is necessary. Actually, you could use any meaningful passenger rail at all.

You are hearing this from a Russian engineer educated at a top US school (UC Berkeley)

Edited by Andrei Moutchkine

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