Chinese memory makers are the product of massive state backing, with tens of billions of dollars in subsidies and the full weight of the Chinese government behind them. Could Samsung win a power struggle against the Chinese government? .. The market that [Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron] created by surviving is completely different from the past. When there were ten players, even if I cut output, someone else could simply increase theirs. But now that only three remain, everyone knows all too well that if anyone recklessly expands supply, everyone goes down together.. the market paradigm has shifted from a “market share (M/S) war” to “profit maximization.”
The key to (CXMT) achieving 10nm-class DRAM mass production at a speed that seemingly defies physics lies in its complete acquisition of Samsung’s PRP process roadmap—a project that took Samsung five years and 1.6 trillion KRW to develop.
South Korean prosecutors indicted multiple individuals in a case alleging that a former Samsung engineer leaked advanced DRAM manufacturing process data to [CXMT] .. shedding light on how leaked trade secrets may have accelerated China’s push into 10nm-class memory.. engineers in question allegedly took note of detailed critical manufacturing steps in handwritten notes taken over five years.. handwritten notes remain difficult to track or audit. Investigators say the accused engineer exploited this gap by memorizing and transcribing process flows, which is virtually impossible to police effectively.
Samsung closed the last Chinese smartphone factory in 2019 and moved South to Vietnam. In 2020, Samsung's Vietnam production accounted for about 25+% of the country's GDP and export.
IMO, and it's not even really clear how Samsung's DRAM business really benefited from the state backing. The South Korea gov't first major initiative "Semiconductor Industry Promotion Plan" started only after Samsung'd developed their first 64K DRAM in 1983. It really helped other local industry competitors such as LG and Hyundai catch up, but Samsung was already on a roll -- by the early 90's, the company became the first to develop 256Mb DRAM. Not clear whether they really needed hand-holding from the gov't.
The government leniency and support for oligarchy and way more important than the dollars they could provide. The current regime could be characterized as a techno surveillance state run by a few oligarchs.
As a free-software advocate, I believe competition should be based on investment in industrial machinery and labour, not on secretly guarded know-how. If Samsung, Micron, and SK-Electronics weren't an oligopoly trying to squeeze maximum profit out of consumers and instead offered good prices, China wouldn't be able to—and would have no interest in—subsidizing private companies to get them on the same level. It's only the greed of these three companies in their oligopoly that has put them in such a fragile position, where the slightest competition could be fatal to them.
Security advisor Brian Shields discovered that not one, but seven Nortel executives, including CEO Frank Dunn, had been hacked, and that the hackers were vacuuming an alarming volume of sensitive material out of its databases. By the end of his investigation, Shields says he was able to track the theft of over 1,400 documents.. during a six-month period when bosses allowed him to monitor the stealing. He found evidence the break-in of Nortel’s internal computer network had started no later than 2000, and probably began in the 1990s. He says it lasted past 2009..
