If anyone has some sense they know it's nothing related to Cybersecurity (laughable) It's just a tit for tat move. US banned YMTC, China bans Micron. China already took a lot of IP and repurposed, just look how Smartphone industry was and how it is now. Apple gave the key manufacture and other data to them (Huawei Mate and Kirin etc were nothing back then) and they exploded in the output and slowly ate away all the other smartphone makers (Xiaomi, Oppo rank top 3-4 positions on the planet), same for LCD technology. LG is now 2nd. Soon to be OLED and NAND and in time x86 by that Hygon / VIA (Loongsoon). This is just another WallSt moves in the past 2 decade showing the reaction.
Forgot to mention, Apple was 1 inch distant from enabling the NAND market collapse, if YMTC got iPhone / iPad / Mac contracts it was done for SKH, Samsung, WD/SanDisk (Kioxia/Toshiba) Irony is Apple owns stake in Bain Capital based Kioxia, still wanted YTMC why ? WallSt investor greed.
Apple only wanted to use YMTC memory for iPhones sold in China, why would that have collapsed the NAND market when that's less than 20% of Apple's yearly production?
That was probably something China was "encouraging", and I'm sort of surprised they allowed the US ban to stand rather than putting Apple in the middle by mandating locally made NAND/RAM in devices sold in country. I think they would have if for not the fact that as much as Apple needs China, China also needs Apple so they are getting back on that YMTC ban via Micron instead.
Because what I said, earlier about how Smartphone manufacturing is now entirely controlled by China and their corporations for the most and with LCD taken over slowly, once Apple gives them what they want they will take over the entire industry. You want to look at how BMW, Volvo manufactures their parts there and see how rapidly the Chinese Automotive is growing. You just have to give them the start and see it grow exponentially.
Mandating locally sold devices for China wouldn't have done anything in the YMTC case. The YMTC ban was targeted in at curbing equipment exports to them which prevents them from scaling up production. YMTC was one NAND manufacturer that planned to actually scale up (and aggressively so) production during 2023 while all the others were cutting in face of the demand collapse, that's what would have caused further price disruption.
The bans never had anything to do with national security, cyber security, whatever. It was an angry man baby's racist tantrums that got the whole world into this because in his infinite wisdom, contrary to everything we know about economics, trade wars could be won. When they can't. It never stops. The last trade war we had half a century ago with Europe still resonates today. Just look up the 'Chicken Tax.'
It's really easy to screw things up, but really hard to fix them.
There is such an oversupply of current-gen NAND, FLASH and DRAM, shifting that quantity to other markets...those markets just don't exist. They will either dump at a discount (and probably a loss) or severely cut production, which might mean jobs.
I think Micron finally had a profitable last quarter (I forgot if it was a profit or just not a huge loss) but they've been in trouble for years. This is really bad news and it makes no sense. NAND, DRAM and SSD controllers don't have back doors. The SED encryption algorithms are industry standard implementations and any irregularities can be detected. As other have mentioned, I wonder if this relates to their other products, because frankly, it's ridiculous if this has to do with raw storage products.
This. The current market for DRAM and NAND are oversupplied, and the prices for them are rock bottom cheap. Dumping an extra 25% Micron inventory into a saturated market is only going to help the consumer, as prices will remain low. Micron loses more money, and Consumers will continue to see low NAND and DRAM prices. These terms are acceptable.
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TeXWiller - Tuesday, May 23, 2023 - link
I wouldn't be surprised if the ban relates to Micron's Advanced Solutions product category rather than the memory products.Silver5urfer - Tuesday, May 23, 2023 - link
If anyone has some sense they know it's nothing related to Cybersecurity (laughable) It's just a tit for tat move. US banned YMTC, China bans Micron. China already took a lot of IP and repurposed, just look how Smartphone industry was and how it is now. Apple gave the key manufacture and other data to them (Huawei Mate and Kirin etc were nothing back then) and they exploded in the output and slowly ate away all the other smartphone makers (Xiaomi, Oppo rank top 3-4 positions on the planet), same for LCD technology. LG is now 2nd. Soon to be OLED and NAND and in time x86 by that Hygon / VIA (Loongsoon). This is just another WallSt moves in the past 2 decade showing the reaction.Silver5urfer - Tuesday, May 23, 2023 - link
Forgot to mention, Apple was 1 inch distant from enabling the NAND market collapse, if YMTC got iPhone / iPad / Mac contracts it was done for SKH, Samsung, WD/SanDisk (Kioxia/Toshiba) Irony is Apple owns stake in Bain Capital based Kioxia, still wanted YTMC why ? WallSt investor greed.Doug_S - Tuesday, May 23, 2023 - link
Apple only wanted to use YMTC memory for iPhones sold in China, why would that have collapsed the NAND market when that's less than 20% of Apple's yearly production?That was probably something China was "encouraging", and I'm sort of surprised they allowed the US ban to stand rather than putting Apple in the middle by mandating locally made NAND/RAM in devices sold in country. I think they would have if for not the fact that as much as Apple needs China, China also needs Apple so they are getting back on that YMTC ban via Micron instead.
Silver5urfer - Tuesday, May 23, 2023 - link
Because what I said, earlier about how Smartphone manufacturing is now entirely controlled by China and their corporations for the most and with LCD taken over slowly, once Apple gives them what they want they will take over the entire industry. You want to look at how BMW, Volvo manufactures their parts there and see how rapidly the Chinese Automotive is growing. You just have to give them the start and see it grow exponentially.limitedaccess - Tuesday, May 23, 2023 - link
Mandating locally sold devices for China wouldn't have done anything in the YMTC case. The YMTC ban was targeted in at curbing equipment exports to them which prevents them from scaling up production. YMTC was one NAND manufacturer that planned to actually scale up (and aggressively so) production during 2023 while all the others were cutting in face of the demand collapse, that's what would have caused further price disruption.i_am_banned - Tuesday, May 23, 2023 - link
These bans on either side have nothing to do with cybersecurity. They're tit for tat. TikTok or Huawei or Micron, they're from the same playbook.Samus - Tuesday, May 23, 2023 - link
The bans never had anything to do with national security, cyber security, whatever. It was an angry man baby's racist tantrums that got the whole world into this because in his infinite wisdom, contrary to everything we know about economics, trade wars could be won. When they can't. It never stops. The last trade war we had half a century ago with Europe still resonates today. Just look up the 'Chicken Tax.'It's really easy to screw things up, but really hard to fix them.
Threska - Tuesday, May 23, 2023 - link
Well 25% that would have gone to China is now freed for other markets to uptake.Samus - Tuesday, May 23, 2023 - link
There is such an oversupply of current-gen NAND, FLASH and DRAM, shifting that quantity to other markets...those markets just don't exist. They will either dump at a discount (and probably a loss) or severely cut production, which might mean jobs.I think Micron finally had a profitable last quarter (I forgot if it was a profit or just not a huge loss) but they've been in trouble for years. This is really bad news and it makes no sense. NAND, DRAM and SSD controllers don't have back doors. The SED encryption algorithms are industry standard implementations and any irregularities can be detected. As other have mentioned, I wonder if this relates to their other products, because frankly, it's ridiculous if this has to do with raw storage products.
meacupla - Wednesday, May 24, 2023 - link
This. The current market for DRAM and NAND are oversupplied, and the prices for them are rock bottom cheap.Dumping an extra 25% Micron inventory into a saturated market is only going to help the consumer, as prices will remain low.
Micron loses more money, and Consumers will continue to see low NAND and DRAM prices. These terms are acceptable.
iphonebestgamephone - Monday, May 29, 2023 - link
I guess they have copied enough of microns tech now.