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  • Marlin1975 - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    Move to China just in time for new Tariffs.
  • TristanSDX - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    but only to US folks
  • Sahrin - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    This is what Trump seems to miss. Tariffs makes the US irrelevant, not more powerful.
  • Alistair - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    right... because Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, and Vietnam, and the Philippines don't exist to supply goods to the U.S. market. Never mind U.S. production. Irrelevant... lol...
  • shing3232 - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    Those countries you mention don't have the advantage of scale and supplied chain of China. You are not going to match it with quality and price ratio.
  • Alistair - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    I support 0 tariffs on everything (they are just bureaucratic barriers and taxes after all). But the idea that "the more you buy from China, the more relevant you are" made me laugh over breakfast, that's all.
  • Alexvrb - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    We should drop all the tariffs... right after they also drop all their protectionism (much of which existed far before Trump), stop stealing technology, forced technology transfer, end dumping practices, allow foreigners to own Chinese property and businesses with no restrictions. Welp, good luck.
  • Alistair - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    China can always lower and match U.S. tariffs if they want to sell into the U.S. market.
  • shing3232 - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    yee,Tariffs is really pointless. USA already tried this before, and it's more of political show to me
  • jordanclock - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    I'm not sure if the tariff would apply when the NAND is produced in China but the product is assembled somewhere else before entering the US?
  • wilsonkf - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    China is not the last stop for Tariffs. It is simply US market vs other part the world. And Intel faces competition from Micron in US.
  • mode_13h - Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - link

    You presume the US will consume the majority of these products. If China is either the ultimate destination or at least the next stop in the supply-chain for these dies/chips, then it makes a lot of sense to produce them in China. That's probably why they put a fab there, in the first place.

    BTW, US tariffs on Chinese products won't remain in force, forever. Trump will lift them once he sees what a trade war does to the US economy. Tariffs were one of the key factors sparking the 1929 economic depression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley...

    The longer the tariffs remain in effect, the more likely that *actual* wars will start. Because, if authoritarian leaders don't have a strong economy, they will marshal support from their populace through nationalist fervor - and there's no better way to do that than with armed conflict. So, expect China to take Taiwan and maybe the US to fight Iran.
  • Round - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link

    This is an old thread, but for those that don't understand, china is a poorly behaved and cheating trading partner, it is not a friend of the US. china is bellicose and one small incident away from becoming a hot war enemy. No more knowledge or tech should be provided or moved to china... ever....
  • cybort - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    Better to consider a Plan B...
  • HStewart - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    To me it sounds like Intel had some falling out with Micron and the Fab 68 is only used temporary and new 3rd generation is going to another fab.

    This whole issue with Micron just seems so messy with former Intel employee that attempting taking company secrets to Micron. It would be really interesting if Intel is taking legal action against Micron, maybe it always was settle out of court with 1.3 Billion dollar deal.
  • Yojimbo - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    Micron had the option to buy Intel out. I think Micron and Intel's strategies diverged. Intel is looking for technologies that can differentiate their platform. Micron is looking to make money from the memory itself. Micron is recently in good enough financial shape that they can fend for themselves and they could also make the decision to trigger the buy-out clause of their agreement with Intel.

    It's not out of the ordinary that Micron would try to hire engineers related to 3D XPoint. As far as what really happened between the accused engineer and Intel, I don't think we can know until, possibly, we find out through the court proceedings. I don't understand your point about the 1.3 billion dollar deal. You think Intel forced Micron to buy the fab that produces 3D XPoint for 1.3 billion dollars to settle some sort of legal case where Intel has absolutely no provable damages? They say they prevented the stealing of the supposedly valuable information. So what could Micron owe Intel? If there was some sort of law broken as far as an attempt to lure the engineer and steal the information that would be a criminal case against the executives involved, I believe. But Intel has not incurred monetary damages to exact from Micron. And how would the total ownership of a valuable fabrication plant that they already half owned be some sort of penalty?
  • Reflex - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    HStewart -

    This is a pretty silly take. Micron always had this option and always indicated they would take it when it made sense. There is little IP to steal from Intel, they literally both own all the patents and processes and Micron is keeping the plant. There is no settlement, if there were Intel would have had to call that out in its quarterly earnings and SEC filings, you can't keep those secret.

    There is nothing messy here. There is nothing out of the ordinary. This happens a lot. It was expected to happen here and it did.
  • boeush - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    "the company is making plans to move production of 3D XPoint/Optane memory to its Chinese fab."

    Get ready to kiss goodbye to your IP, and say hello to cheap knockoffs that put you out of business a few years later ...

    The idiots in C-suites seem to never, ever learn (or perhaps, with their golden parachutes in tow, they have no incentive to actually give a shit ...)
  • melgross - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    This an Intel owned, and run plant. No technology transfer will be done.
  • boeush - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    Uh-huh, yeah. And the people working at that plant won't steal everything, then hand it over to whatever state-funded "competitor" miraculously emerges overnight - just shortly before jumping ship to become "founders" of said "competitor". Pull the other one...
  • shing3232 - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    They don't have to steal it, they could just learn how to design it,and it's not illegal at all.
  • boeush - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    That's my point. It *IS* illegal in countries that actually honor patents and have laws in place to protect intellectual property. But China isn't such a country; its rules and practices are deliberately designed to encourage IP theft and transfer.

    Any company reliant on innovation for success, that contemplates building its products in China in this day and age, after all these years of precedent, is either terminally stupid, suicidal, or both.
  • Reflex - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link

    They don't need to steal from a plant to steal the IP for this sort of thing. The patents are public, and anyone with the right equipment can copy the actual chips. Rather than running an espionage operation they can simply spend $100 on an Optane drive, delid it and put it under an electron microscope.
  • mode_13h - Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - link

    *Because* the patents are public, there are certain aspects of a business that are usually protected as trade secrets.

    Patents also require a degree of novelty that might not always apply to trade secrets, even though they might contain some vital details.
  • Murloc - Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - link

    Patents are public so the chinese can copy them already, and using somebody else's trade secrets is not really illegal as long as you don't hack anyone.
  • mode_13h - Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - link

    Taking somebody else's trade secrets is illegal, unless they fail to keep them secret. So, the question then becomes how they get access to those trade secrets without breaking the law. That would require Intel to be reckless in protecting them.
  • Reflex - Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - link

    Trade secrets are not legally protected at all actually. Legal protection requires registration as a patent, copyright or trademark. Companies make a choice whether to protect a trade secret via legal means that includes registration and government imposed law, or by simply attempting to keep it secret. There are advantages and drawbacks to each.

    The only way trade secrets are illegal to take are if they were taken by illegal means, such as industrial espionage or bribing an employee with a NDA to leak them. There are many ways to acquire them via legal means, from analyzing the product you wish to copy to carefully monitoring what goes into a production facility (who they hire, what equipment they buy, the amount of resources going in/out, etc etc) to extrapolate the process.

    If you managed to determine the secret formula to, say, Coke, there is nothing Coca-Cola could do to you since they never registered it in any way to benefit from legal protections.
  • mode_13h - Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - link

    That was basically my point. If they fail to keep the secret, then it can become public information. However, a case you missed is an employee breaching their NDA or other contract by leaving and using that knowledge for a competitor.

    My reply was directed towards Murloc's claim that only obtaining them by hacking is illegal (I guess, due to hacking itself being illegal).
  • mode_13h - Wednesday, May 15, 2019 - link

    It depends on what you mean by "learn". If that entails an employee working for Intel to gain access to their trade secrets, then leaving and using those for a competitor, that is certainly illegal.

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