[HN Gopher] Apple dives into display-making to cut reliance on S...
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Apple dives into display-making to cut reliance on Samsung
Author : thunderbong
Score : 132 points
Date : 2023-05-18 13:21 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (asia.nikkei.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (asia.nikkei.com)
| valine wrote:
| Is MicroLED the be all end all for display technologies? Perfect
| blacks, high brightness, no burn in, no bezels, thin. It's hard
| to imagine another display tech displacing MicroLED once it takes
| hold. Does it have any theoretical downsides other than cost?
| hedora wrote:
| In addition to flicker (discussed in sibling comments), I
| imagine they have problems with power + glare just like any
| other non-reflective display technology.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| In theory, yes it's about as perfect as a screen technology can
| get. I'm sure earlier implementations will have quirks that
| make it a dealbreaker for particular applications/users, but
| that'll work itself out in time.
|
| I'm looking forward to it. I'm happy with the OLED panels in my
| phones but with how long static elements are visible on my
| computer monitors and TVs I haven't been able to justify buying
| OLED for those with how even the best can still exhibit burn-
| in. Once there's microLED monitors and TVs with performance
| equivalent or better than current QD-OLED panels I'll be buying
| them immediately.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > I haven't been able to justify buying OLED for those with
| how even the best can still exhibit burn-in.
|
| My oldest OLED TV will turn 6 in August and has exhibited no
| burn-in.
|
| I think it ultimately comes down to what you're watching.
| You're likely to experience burn-in if you watch something
| with a persistent banner like 24 hour news.
|
| For example, my 2 year old LED VA Panel monitor already has
| burn-in where the task bar is displayed.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > For example, my 2 year old LED VA Panel monitor already
| has burn-in where the task bar is displayed.
|
| You'd think modern desktop OSes would allow subtle shifting
| of persistent UI elements by a few pixels to avoid burn-in.
| LineageOS already does this
| crazygringo wrote:
| It's a whole area of the screen. Shifting by a few pixels
| doesn't do anything for a whole area. It'll help only
| with thin text, but that's the element that tends to
| mostly change on its own anyways.
|
| If you want to rotate the task bar or dock or menu bar
| around all four edges of the display every day then
| maybe, but that'll be hell on your habits and muscle
| memory.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Dark themes FTW - can't have burn-in if "the whole area"
| is unlit. You even get longer battery life as a bonus.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| Yup. When the kids were younger, we always had Disney
| junior on. Mostly because I always like to have a bit of
| background noise (this kids didn't actually watch it that
| much) and it was kid friendly. The Disney junior logo
| burned into the screen.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| The risk is lower but still present on my TV, which spends
| a large percentage, maybe even a majority of its powered-on
| time playing games with static HUDs. What I'm really
| worried about is computer usage... the Windows taskbar and
| macOS menubar specifically. Both can be set to auto-hide
| but I'd really rather not have to do that, particularly for
| the Mac global menubar.
|
| And yeah, I've experienced image retention on non-OLED
| screens. the LG-made 2560x1440 IPS panels that used to get
| used in 27" iMacs would after a few years start exhibiting
| image retention, though it'd at least fade if the static
| elements that sat long enough to cause retention were
| hidden. I think this was caused by the heat generated by
| the computer part of the iMac though, because the Apple
| Thunderbolt Display that used the same panels never develop
| the issue even after a decade+ of usage. I also haven't
| seen it happen on any other IPS panels I've owned.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Microled will prove very cheap when somebody figures out a good
| production process.
|
| None of the materials are expensive.
|
| The risk is that they patent that process and we have 20 years
| to wait till we get cheap screens.
| christkv wrote:
| Don't MicroLED's still have the problem of higher pixel refresh
| latency than OLED ?
| dtx1 wrote:
| OLEDs have almost perfect Pixel Refresh Latency (< 1.5ms).
| MicroLEDs are still just LCDs with a better backlight but LCD
| Tech has evolved quite a lot and pixel refresh time (< 3-4ms)
| is not much of a problem anymore.
| leecb wrote:
| > MicroLEDs are still just LCDs with a better backlight but
| LCD Tech has evolved quite a lot and pixel refresh time (<
| 3-4ms) is not much of a problem anymore.
|
| You're thinking of MiniLED, which is just better LEDs
| behind an LCD.
|
| MicroLED is a whole different ball game, with no LCD at
| all. It's just red, green, blue LEDs, one for each pixel.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| You have to explain that one to me? How are microLEDs just
| LCDs with a better backlight? Are you mixing up miniLED and
| microLED?
| manaskarekar wrote:
| Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but micro-LED, by design is
| going to suffer from PWM flicker.
|
| That is a deal breaker for many.
| redox99 wrote:
| Could they use a high enough frequency that isn't noticeable?
| 10kHz maybe?
| bioemerl wrote:
| I don't believe it would be by design. LEDs can dim without
| flicker.
| manaskarekar wrote:
| Please see my reply to sibling comment.
| bioemerl wrote:
| Seems to be a limitation of our modern times rather than
| the display technology. I'd hope to see PWM free displays
| in the future as our micro LEDs improve.
| valine wrote:
| Why can't they reduce voltage to each pixel to reduce
| brightness? I don't see this as a fundamental limitation of
| the display technology, PWM is just easy and cheap to
| implement.
| MoreSEMI wrote:
| LEDs central wavelength changes with current. Some
| flashlight enthusiasts will not touch current regulation
| and prefer to use PWM because that means the color output
| does not change. From what I understand you can even use
| this effect to calibrate a diode laser to a specific
| wavelength(within reason).
| jmole wrote:
| This is not really a problem, you can away calibrate the
| differences on a pixel-by-pixel basis on each frame with
| modern mobile GPUs.
|
| The bigger challenge here is pixel architecture, but if
| apple is actually slicing up wafers into a couple million
| pieces to build these displays, they are already sort of
| moving away from the typical TFT architecture and may be
| able to integrate more complex pixel drivers, potentially
| including things like touch sensors directly onto the
| pixels.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I'm sure you could calibrate a compensation in theory
| (don't know about in practice), but that would also
| necessarily decrease the display color gamut, no? It's
| not like you can produce "all" the colors from any three
| primaries -- they have to be very specific.
|
| So if the color shift is noticeable enough to require
| correction, then it's _definitely_ enough to
| substantially decrease the color gamut as well. And so a
| range of wider-gamut colors simply can 't be compensated
| for at all.
| MoreSEMI wrote:
| It is not possible to calibrate it away without knowing
| what the central wavelength of the LED is. That would
| require a spectrometer and if you manage to build one on
| chip per pixel which is currently not possible/practical.
|
| I don't understand what you mean with the GPU. It is has
| no information about the exact color of the LED.
| jmole wrote:
| This is equivalent to saying that you can't build a
| color-accurate display at all because you don't know the
| central wavelength. Not only is this inaccurate (LEDs are
| binned for exactly this purpose), but brightness
| variations are by far the greater contributor to display
| inaccuracy.
|
| The shift in wavelength is primarily determined by
| temperature and current, and they work in opposite
| directions so sort of cancel each other out. And in any
| case, we're talking about well-characterized shifts on
| the order of a few nm over the operating range. The eye's
| cones are broadband, so you're not going to notice
| wavelength shifts, especially compared to the brightness
| variations over the same range.
|
| This is a big deal for white LEDs because you have no
| control of the resulting color temperature (the phosphor
| emission and blue component wholly determine the output),
| but for an RGB structure, you have pixel-level control
| over each component.
| crazygringo wrote:
| From Wikipedia:
|
| > _Digital pulse-width modulation is well-suited to driving
| microLED displays. MicroLEDs experience a color shift as
| the current magnitude changes. Analog schemes change
| current to change brightness. With a digital pulse, only
| one current value is used for the on state. Thus, there is
| no color shift that occurs as brightness changes._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroLED
| kken wrote:
| LEDs tend to change emission wavelength when changing the
| current. This is quite an issue if you want to combine them
| in an RGB display, because the human eye is extremely
| sensitivty to relative color variation.
| amelius wrote:
| Ok, so change not only the current but also the RGB
| values?
| montecarl wrote:
| I'd love a source for this claim (not sarcastic, I really
| would). I've have done a lot of testing of LEDs for
| scientific uses and my experience and what I've read show
| that temperature is what effects the center wavelength of
| LEDs. Not current/voltage. The reason for this, is that
| in monochromatic LEDs (so not white LEDs which have a
| phosphor coating) the emission wavelength is defined
| primarily by the bandgap in the semiconductor material.
| This bandgap is the difference in energy between the
| valance electron band and the conducting electron band
| (and this band "gap" is the reason for the "semi" in
| semiconductors).
|
| This bandgap corresponds to the photon energy of the
| emitted light as electrons get excited due to the applied
| voltage as electrons are excited to the conduction band
| and then relax back to the ground state giving off light.
|
| The bandgap energy changes as a function of temperature.
| The primary reason for this is that the lattice constants
| increases as temperature increases. This causes the
| bandgap to decrease, meaning the energy of the photons is
| less giving a longer wavelength.
|
| The opposite effect is also true, cooling a LED will lead
| to a shorter wavelength. Here is a cool video showing the
| effect![1]
|
| Increasing the current through the LED may change the
| temperature by a little bit but you need large
| temperature changes to have any effect.
|
| The temperature has a much greater impact on the
| intensity of light emitted by the LED. I have seen a
| typically 1% decrease in intensity per degree C for the
| LEDs I have tested. This is the effect that matters most
| when using RGB leds as if the red led gets dimmer cause
| it is hot, than the green or blue, it will be seen as a
| color change, even though the center wave length of its
| emission is unchanged.
|
| I mostly just wanted to share things I have learned about
| LEDs over the past year or two and your comment gave me a
| good opportunity!
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_50Z3OGbwX0
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| Thanks, I've never seen such a bright explanation of
| bandgap!
| manaskarekar wrote:
| I was commenting based on my recollection of this article.
| Granted it's for AMOLED, so it may not apply to microLED.
| In this regard, AMOLED displays have a strong disadvantage.
| If you feed less voltage to the organic diodes, not only do
| they limit their brightness, but their color also changes,
| so that there might suddenly be visible differences in the
| color reproduction.
|
| https://www.notebookcheck.net/Analysis-DC-Dimming-vs-PWM-
| Can...
|
| Based on that article, non-PWM based solutions seem to be
| very hard to implement for smaller devices anyway.
|
| Apple has already unfortunately abandoned PWM flicker free
| displays on almost all their devices. So I have no reason
| to believe this will change.
| FractalParadigm wrote:
| Is there a reason they couldn't just jack up the PWM
| frequency? Most OLEDs seem to be under 500 Hz[0], which
| leads me to believe that there's something limiting them
| from performing any faster. Basic LEDs on the other hand
| can easily operate at frequencies in the 1-5+ kHz range
| and can be pushed very far if the entire system is
| designed well. A display running at 10 kHz might not be
| noticeable to even the most sensitive people.
|
| [0]: https://www.notebookcheck.net/PWM-Ranking-Notebooks-
| Smartpho...
| londons_explore wrote:
| Because the display can only have one row of pixels on at
| once.
|
| If you have a display 1000 pixels tall, then the brightest
| LED's are on for 1/1000th of the time.
| addisonl wrote:
| Seems like a limitation that will be solved as time goes
| on.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Unless you have a diode, capacitor and MOSFET at every
| pixel, you can't....
|
| And manufacturing limitations mean you can't easily have
| those per-pixel while still keeping the whole thing
| cheap.
| saltcured wrote:
| Couldn't they break the screen into tiles/chunks that
| have separate addressing? I.e. use 2 or 4 parallel
| drivers and get 2x or 4x duration per line.
| Someone wrote:
| > manufacturing limitations mean you can't easily have
| those per-pixel while still keeping the whole thing cheap
|
| " _can't easily_ " seems to imply it is possible. If
| that's true, Apple, with its deep pockets, should be able
| to do it.
|
| Also, I don't think Apple will be bothered much with "
| _keeping the whole thing cheap_ ". They will want to
| prevent it from getting expensive, but likely will accept
| intermediate costs if the result is much better.
| akvadrako wrote:
| You can have more drivers if you want, say 10 so they're
| on 1/100th of the time.
| dehrmann wrote:
| How's its response time? Any ghosting?
| brightball wrote:
| Who's stock will this negatively impact?
| lostmsu wrote:
| Samsung?
| dang wrote:
| Url changed from https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/18/apple-mass-
| produce-micr..., which points to this.
|
| Submitters: " _Please submit the original source. If a post
| reports on something found on another site, submit the latter._ "
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| buran77 wrote:
| > "Apple's ultimate plan is to introduce the technologies on its
| iPhone, which is its key revenue source and has much bigger
| volume, to justify the investments over the years," said one of
| the sources who has seen samples of the company's microLED
| screen.
|
| One thing I really appreciate when it comes to Apple is that
| despite all their shortcomings they don't "sleep on the job".
| Over the years they never hesitated to cannibalize their own
| product lines (iPod), or go through several tough technological
| transitions (68K/PPC/x86/ARM) if it meant building a better
| product. And bigger profits of course.
|
| For example I'm sure Google would just rather stuff your phone to
| the gills with ads in order to drive revenue than actually bother
| with a coherent investment in a long term strategy to make a
| better product. And bigger profits of course.
| m463 wrote:
| The other side of that coin is that apple navel gazes, shunning
| the rest of the world.
|
| I think the most recent apple golden age was around 2007 when
| they switched to intel. This allowed folks to use apple
| hardware and macos, but also run windows on their systems. mac
| os was more open. The mac pro embraced the PC ecosystem, hard
| drives, pcie cards and more.
|
| Nowadays the pendulum is swinging the other way and though it
| might be good for apple's bottom line, I don't think it's
| better for customers (or apple long term)
| yunohn wrote:
| > Over the years they never hesitated to cannibalize their own
| product lines (iPod)
|
| The iPod was subsumed by the iPhone, not cannibalised. Parents
| were obligated to buy their kids a device with
| tracking/communication capabilities, so iPods became
| irrelevant. Now everyone buys the 2x more expensive device.
|
| Now, if Apple were to merge the iPad and Macbook, I would agree
| with you readily.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| There's no replacement for the Nano. iPhone doesn't cover
| that use case.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Is Google launching Bard a perfect example of displaying the
| willingness to cannibalize Search?
|
| Google Brain was formed in 2011. If that's not coherent
| investment in a long term strategy I don't know what would
| qualify.
| __hello__ wrote:
| This is a bad example - bard just seems to halucinate and
| make up 50% of the answers.
| pinkcan wrote:
| lol, don't be naive
|
| bart is only being made public because openai did a thing
| buran77 wrote:
| The only thing Bard shows is that Google doesn't want OpenAI
| to eat into their Search. There's no indication it was ever
| planned to compete with Search or that they had a clear plan
| for it before OpenAI walked that path.
|
| When you have all you need theoretically in house but your
| moves are rushed and come only as a reaction to the
| competition you are the very example I was trying to make, of
| milking your cash cow and waiting too long. Google had to
| change the strategy [0], reorganize [1], and struggle to
| launch your product in an emergency as a response to
| competition. This is the very definition of _not_ having a
| well thought out long term strategy, isn 't it?
|
| Google owned Brain and DeepMind as rival divisions since
| before OpenAI existed. They didn't cooperate, didn't launch
| any revolutionary product, and didn't compete in any way with
| Google's main offering. They were left to their own devices
| like side projects until the competition dashed in front and
| hit Google's most sensitive area and dictated their strategy.
|
| I don't know if Bard is a good or bad product. But we may
| have different definitions of a coherent investment in a long
| term strategy to make a better product. None of the above
| shouts "coherent", "long term strategy", or even necessarily
| "better product".
|
| [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2023/01/feari...
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04/googles-ai-panic-
| for...
| [deleted]
| dehrmann wrote:
| > cannibalize their own product lines (iPod)
|
| I disagree on this. The iPhone was a potential iPod replacement
| when it launched, but the choice was selling $200 iPods or $500
| iPhones. The iPhone felt like a leap of several generations,
| but the hardware and business model were still similar.
|
| Where Apple actually cannibalized something was Apple Music and
| the iTunes store, but they drug their feet on it.
| buran77 wrote:
| > but the choice was selling $200 iPods or $500 iPhones
|
| I don't think we are in disagreement. But the fact is very
| few companies do this regardless. When it comes to the
| product that's their bread and butter they tend to put it on
| a pedestal never to be touched until it falls into
| irrelevance.
|
| Apple didn't launch an improved iPod and retire the old. They
| didn't try to sell a phone and a music player by artificially
| differentiating them, or by sabotaging one of them. They
| didn't try to make $250 off the iPod and another $250 from a
| phone that "shouldn't compete too well". They launched 2
| product lines made by different parts of the company, knowing
| that the iPhone may undermine the iPod userbase and then
| still fail, possibly souring those customers.
|
| They wouldn't necessarily do this today. iDevices now are
| clearly (and artificially) differentiated from the Macs:
| different OS, no options to use them in a way they truly
| compete despite having such similar hardware theoretical
| capabilities.
|
| Again to give the Google example, when they tried to have
| competing lines (Google/Nest) they managed to fail at both
| and lose the customers completely.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Which has more ads in the settings menu, an iPhone or a Pixel?
| shmerl wrote:
| Typical Apple NIH mentality. What will be next, memory chips may
| be?
| alberth wrote:
| Has Apple in its history ever manufactured components themselves?
|
| I know they have created machinery for their suppliers to use,
| but actual manufacturing before?
| BearOso wrote:
| At this point there isn't any significant infrastructure for
| building microled displays anywhere. Why invest in a competitor
| when they would do the same exact thing you would, but they
| would own it?
| dimmke wrote:
| They definitely have assembled them but I don't think they ever
| felt the need to manufacture because the infrastructure for
| doing that for various types of parts is so strong. This is
| probably just another step in vertical integration and hedging
| against their supply chain being vulnerable.
|
| I believe the supplier for iOS displays in general has been
| Samsung for a while (majority) with a few other suppliers mixed
| in. Maybe they want to keep going with this technology and
| Samsung is moving away from it.
|
| They're not going to be fabbing their own chips so maybe it's
| an attempt to shore up other areas that are less moated.
| babl-yc wrote:
| Which step are you counting as "manufacture"? They will have a
| lot of partners here in the supply chain of this component;
| ams-Osram, LG, and TSMC according to the article.
|
| In terms of Apple being "hands on" in manufacturing I don't see
| this as too different from the Apple Silicon case, where they
| design but work with partners in Taiwan+China to manufacture.
|
| I see the big news here as "moving away from Samsung", where
| they would likely have to continue to invest in a competitor
| (money and IP) in order to get microLED technology through
| them.
| bitL wrote:
| You can kinda view ARM and TSMC as their babies. They founded
| ARM and financed all the node tech in TSMC that made TSMC
| competitive.
| Zenst wrote:
| Not in this universe:
|
| History of TSMC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fVrWDdll0g
|
| ARM was born out of the BBC micro project, so if anything a
| BBC baby.
| bitL wrote:
| From Wikipedia about ARM:
|
| "The company was founded in November 1990 as Advanced RISC
| Machines Ltd and structured as a joint venture between
| Acorn Computers, Apple, and VLSI Technology."
|
| All latest node tech from TSMC was co-financed by Apple who
| in turn had the first-user right.
| fredoralive wrote:
| But the ARM architecture was originally an Acorn internal
| project (it was originally the Acorn RISC Machine), with
| the first Acorn Archimedes systems released in mid-1987.
| As you noted Apple did invest in the project later, when
| ARM the company was founded, but they also bailed out in
| the late '90s when they had their own financial issues.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > The company was founded in November 1990 as Advanced
| RISC Machines Ltd and structured as a joint venture
| between Acorn Computers, Apple, and VLSI Technology.
|
| The company was renamed to Advanced RISC Machines to
| placate Apple - the first ARM processor was the _Acorn_
| RISC Machine, which tells you it 's true heritage.
| [deleted]
| leejoramo wrote:
| They are referring to the fact that Acorn, Apple and VLSI
| were the co-founders of ARM. This is the source of Apple's
| very expansive license to ARM
| leejoramo wrote:
| Apple use to directly manufacture its computers at is own
| factories in the US (and maybe elsewhere).
|
| And if I recall correctly the last two generations of Mac Pro
| systems have been built in their own plants.
|
| Of course that only says they have experience with making cases
| and motherboards, not down to the level of chip and screen
| components
| culturestate wrote:
| _> the last two generations of Mac Pro systems have been
| built in their own plants_
|
| As far as we know, Apple doesn't own any of its manufacturing
| directly. The Mac Pro plant in Texas is operated by either
| Quanta or Flex[1], depending on who you ask.
|
| You could argue that it's largely a semantic difference,
| though, because those facilities are dedicated entirely to
| Apple and they're usually the ones funding their
| construction.
|
| 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/23/apple-will-make-the-mac-
| pro-...
| criddell wrote:
| AFAIK, they have have never manufactured components before.
|
| Every company that does manufacture components had to start at
| some point. This seems like a good time for Apple to start.
| dimmke wrote:
| Good time and place to start too- the smallest screens of any
| product they produce and only the high end (and margin)
| models. Always better to start small. Can work out the kinks
| before going wide.
| vkdelta wrote:
| They have designed their own SoCs, own BLE radio and now
| working on their own cellular and Wifi radios.
|
| I understand displays is another beast but apple is doing
| complete vertical integration like no one else. Anytime they
| notice a dependency on specific vendor, they try to move out.
| alberth wrote:
| But design is not manufacture.
|
| Have they ever _manufactured_ components before?
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The sapphire glass used on some devices was reportedly made
| in an apple owned factory, according to Apple terms, using
| equipment Apple paid for. The actual production was handled
| by a third party using that space that went bankrupt, but
| I'd say it counts.
|
| This would be the most significant component they've
| manufactured in-house though.
| sangnoir wrote:
| That doesn't count because the other company had designed
| the process, but didn't have capacity to produce at
| Apple-level volumes. Apple paid for the expansion,and
| then ditched the company's product (which led to the
| bankruptcy)
| andruby wrote:
| Designed, yes. But not manufactured afaik
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| Putting this facility in Taiwan seems risky, considering the
| political situation. I heard Warren buffet just pulled his tsmc
| stocks out of caution over it
| sampullman wrote:
| I don't think the political situation has changed that much
| since 1949, except for minor updates in 1971 and 1992. Besides,
| as the sibling commenter mentions, Apple (and every other
| consumer electronics manufacturer in the world) is in deep
| trouble if war breaks out.
|
| If they de-risk by doing this in the US or India, what are they
| going to use the screens for?
| melling wrote:
| China has the second largest economy with the second largest
| military budget.
|
| The world is definitely a lot different than it was 50 years
| ago.
|
| Taking an island 100 miles offshore is definitely doable
| jandrese wrote:
| Naval landings are never easy. Suicidal if you don't have
| complete air dominance. In World War 2 the Nazis were able
| to conquer all of western Europe in weeks, but were
| completely stopped by the mere 50 miles of English Channel.
| And this was in the days before Radar was well understood
| and deployed and before guided cruise missiles were a
| thing.
|
| There is only one scenario where the invasion of Taiwan
| isn't a long and drawn out affair that costs the Chinese
| hundreds of thousands to millions of troops, and that's the
| one where they start off by nuking it flat in a massive
| surprise attack and end up winning only a radioactive
| wasteland for their troubles.
| [deleted]
| sampullman wrote:
| Sure, I was being a bit flippant. The world is different in
| many ways, including more interdependence between Chinese
| and Taiwanese economies. Without getting too deep into it,
| the issue mostly comes down to whether the US decides to
| intervene.
|
| Everybody suffers massively if there's hot war in the
| strait. The main point is that unless supply chains are
| unwound from both countries, it doesn't matter that much
| where you put a new screen factory.
| melling wrote:
| Of course it matters... It's completely absurd to think
| it doesn't matter ...or are you being flippant again. I
| don't have time to burn so say what you mean. If you
| really don't understand, I can explain the obvious
| advantages to not placing a factory in a potential war
| zone.
|
| Then there's the other danger...
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-destroy-taiwans-
| semiconduc...
|
| The US could not intervene other than destroying all the
| semiconductor factories.
| sampullman wrote:
| I'm not being flippant, and I think my meaning is clear.
| You're avoiding the original point, which is that if the
| majority of your factories are already in a potential war
| zone, the risk calculation doesn't change by adding
| another. What do you think happens to Honhai's Chinese
| facilities during this hypothetical invasion?
|
| Arguing over US strategic ambiguity is probably too off
| topic for this thread. I live in Taiwan, so I guess I've
| put my money where my mouth is.
| melling wrote:
| All? The problem is being addressed. TSMC is building a
| second factory in the US, for example.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/06/tsmc-to-up-arizona-
| investmen...
|
| "Since the beginning of the 2020s, TSMC has expanded its
| operations outside of the island of Taiwan, opening new
| fabs in Japan and the United States, with further plans
| for expansion into Germany"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC#:~:text=Four%20200%20m
| m%2...
|
| More fabs coming to the US too:
|
| https://www.tomshardware.com/news/new-us-fabs-everything-
| we-...
|
| Now, would building the only plant that makes your
| displays in a potential war zone increase your risk?
| Common sense is all you need to answer the question.
| sampullman wrote:
| majority != all, and my argument is based on the idea
| that:
|
| (1) Invasion is very unlikely
|
| (2) If there is an invasion, it's very likely that the US
| and Japan have something to say about it.
|
| Anyway, I wonder if there's other reasons for it to be in
| Taiwan. The article isn't very substantive, but it links
| to another one that says:
|
| "European company ams OSRAM will be the primary supplier
| of microLED chips for Apple, but there is potential for
| Taiwanese suppliers like Epistar to become additional
| suppliers of microLED chips by 2026-2027..."
|
| Maybe there are some partnerships aside from TSMC that
| are driving the decision. The article says the process
| will be developed in Longtan (Taoyuan), which happens to
| be where at least one other company is setting up
| microLED production:
|
| https://www.microled-info.com/tags/auo
| melling wrote:
| " (1) Invasion is very unlikely"
|
| Says some person on the Internet.
|
| "(2)..."
|
| But if that person is wrong, they believe...
|
| Remember when Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons
| because it thought they would be protected?
|
| https://www.npr.org/2022/02/21/1082124528/ukraine-russia-
| put...
|
| Ukraine had the third largest nuclear weapons arsenal.
| Now they are fighting for survival.
|
| What the US, and how much the US, will do, with respect
| to Taiwan depends on politicians in Washington D.C.,
| public sentiment, etc. and that changes over time.
| mcntsh wrote:
| > I don't think the political situation has changed that much
| since 1949
|
| China is in much better of a position both economically and
| militarily to invade Taiwan today than it was in 1992, 1971,
| and 1949.
| [deleted]
| mjhay wrote:
| Almost their whole supply chain is in China. If a Taiwan strait
| war breaks out, Apple is completely screwed anyway.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Might help matter. If China blows up part of Apple, they are
| going lose all of Apple Business. That's a big cash cow China
| would lose.
| bioemerl wrote:
| It's a pretty far out risk and far better than putting it in
| China like most companies do.
| Flatcircle wrote:
| I still don't understand why China would possibly want to try
| and invade Taiwan? The chip foundry's would immediately be
| scuttled, and whatever would be left would be a nice, but
| simple island.
|
| In exchange for taking that land mass, their entire
| international trade business which mainland china is extremely
| reliant on, would be in jeopardy.
|
| It would almost be political suicide to invade as far as I see
| it. But I'm no expert.
| ttul wrote:
| Assuming the Chinese manage to occupy Taiwan, they would no
| doubt want to take over TSMC's facilities and hold them as a
| bargaining chip to normalize relations with the West. They'd
| swiftly run out of essential components such as silicon
| wafers (from Japan), but the CCPC might just try their luck.
| toast0 wrote:
| > In exchange for taking that land mass, their entire
| international trade business which mainland china is
| extremely reliant on, would be in jeopardy.
|
| The thing is most of the world is also pretty reliant on
| international trade business with mainland China.
|
| The question is really about how willing the world is to
| disrupt their own economies in order to disrupt China's.
|
| Trade barriers against North Korea and Cuba are basically
| free for the other country, restricting access to energy
| imports from Iran or Russia imposes a real cost on the
| country raising the barriers, but even after decades of
| grumbling it's hard to find a supply chain for manufactured
| products that doesn't have a significant dependency on China.
| That makes it hard to fight a war with China, trade or
| otherwise.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > hard to find a supply chain for manufactured products
| that doesn't have a significant dependency on China. That
| makes it hard to fight a war with China, trade or
| otherwise.
|
| You don't ban those products, you put big tariffs on them.
| That way, anyone who has the option to source stuff
| elsewhere does so.
|
| And you deliberately act erratically with tariffs - adding
| and removing them at short notice - so that lots of
| companies think it is just too risky to trade with China,
| and move manufacturing elsewhere as insurance.
|
| This playbook has been done before...
| George83728 wrote:
| It's not about the chips. It was _never_ about the chips.
| IlliOnato wrote:
| I still don't understand how Russia (the country where I was
| born) would possibly want and invade Ukraine... But it did.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| A number of reasons including
|
| * because they could (or so they thought)
|
| * because there's a lot of important resources in the
| ground
|
| * because they want to lay down the border between NATO and
| Russia and preferably not at the border of Russia but on
| someone else's turf
| Flatcircle wrote:
| That's the thing, taking Ukraine gives Russia several
| advantages, Ukraine produces a lot of the agriculture in
| that region, so taking that gives them another large
| bargaining chip in their sphere.
|
| Not to mention, it's a large landmass that offers a huge
| buffer between the NATO countries and Russia.
|
| And it's got another 40 or 50 million people for Russia,
| which has a population problem.
|
| And it's got iron & Steel exports...
|
| Taiwan has TSMC. And I suspect the US has a bunch of fueled
| up C-17's ready to take all the important infrastructure to
| the US and plans in place to effectively destroy the rest
| at a moments notice.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > And it's got another 40 or 50 million people for
| Russia, which has a population problem.
|
| Taking 40M people with the same demographic problems
| gives you a bigger problem - not a solution...
| SXX wrote:
| Nice source:
|
| https://www.populationpyramid.net/russian-
| federation/2020/
|
| https://www.populationpyramid.net/ukraine/2020/
|
| In 10 years demographic in both countries will be as bad
| as in Japan.
| Flatcircle wrote:
| I agree I don't think it'd help Putin or anything, I'm
| just saying that if they took Ukraine, he'd add another
| 42 million people to the 133 million he already rules
| over. That's about a third more people to rule over, and
| he's not concerned about the later years of a peasant
| Russian. I assume he's concerned with more able bodied
| young men, which, ironically is a cohort he lacks while
| he tries to capture the country he's trying to obtain to
| help with that problem.
| SXX wrote:
| Okay I see that majority of comments here on HN including
| yours have one big flaw. So I'll just try to share
| perspective as person who was actually born in Russia and
| lived there good chunk of the year till February 2022.
|
| For some reason people from outside of ex-USSR usually
| suppose there is at least something rational about this
| war. But USSR does not exist for 30 years and there are
| no massive political machine. It's just a autocracy /
| kleptocracy where all decisions taken by a very small
| groups of incompetent people whos only goal is to
| preserve their power.
|
| Neither there is any real ideology in Russia. Putin is a
| much closer to The Dictator movie than to Stalin or
| Hitler. He care of his giant palaces and yachts far more
| than about gaining 42M extra subjects to rule. This whole
| war is just a presidental PR campaign 2024 gone wrong.
|
| PS: Yeah, that's it. It's not some great powerplay to
| control the world. Not a war with NATO or US. Not even a
| war over reasources or territory. It's just aging
| kleptocracy that stumbled and now is killing 100,000s in
| pointless war.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| I do agree that there is a part of this is a Presidential
| campaign gone wrong. I don't know if I'd submit that as
| 100%. But Putin does like looking like a strong man. And
| if he took Ukraine in a week, as his original plan looked
| it(?), he would have definitely been able to look like
| the strong man. I do think there is some aspects of
| resources and territory though. More access to warm water
| ports and controlling essentially the bread basket of
| Europe. Lets not act like Ukraine isn't strategically
| important for Europe has a whole. Taking Ukraine along
| with having Belarus in his pocket also significantly
| shrink the amount of border they actually need to defend
| because of the mountains.
| SXX wrote:
| I not arguing there are no strategic importance. If he'd
| managed to successfully assasinate or overthrow
| government in 3 days then it's would be the way how
| Kremlin will talk of their great victory.
|
| The deal is: neither Putin nor population of Russia give
| a damn about this territory control. If Ukraine will free
| Donetsk and Luhansk tomorrow and Crimea in a year no one
| in Russia will care about it. Except of course people
| living on occupied territories, but FSB will shut them
| up.
|
| On 30 September 2022 they announced annexiation of
| Kherson. Claimed it's will be part of Russia forever.
| Just a bit more than month later on 9th November 2022 it
| stopped being part of Russia and no one cared about it
| since. And too talkative members of occupation government
| just died under strage circumstances.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| Why are you looking at China though such different lense?
| Taiwan is exactly like Crimea or Cuba strategically
| speaking.
|
| Please don't invade any countries even if they're smaller
| and inconvenient to your stories.
| SXX wrote:
| No idea why you being downvoted. I as owner of Russian
| passport even been to Kiev in December 2021 and talked with
| a lot of friends and just normal people there on gamedev
| conference. There been a lot of tension for 8 years since
| 2014 and even more during 2021. Yet no matter political
| views no one in either Russia or Ukraine seriously
| considered full scale war possible.
|
| Conclusion: there no way to know what is inside a head of
| aging autocrat.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > no matter political views no one in either Russia or
| Ukraine seriously considered full scale war possible.
|
| Plenty of experts have been calling it for a decade
| now... EU/US influence has been slowly creeping east for
| 30 years. Russia had no other options really - as soon as
| a pro-west leader was elected to Ukraine, war was
| inevitable.
|
| And the same will happen in Belarus when the leadership
| changes there too.
| murkt wrote:
| What is this "no other options" bullshit? They could just
| not attack Ukraine and that's it. Nobody would attack
| Russia.
| londons_explore wrote:
| [flagged]
| murkt wrote:
| I live in Ukraine and never have seen a US-funded
| playground. As a father of two, I'm a frequent visitor of
| playgrounds. Also have never seen a "funded by EU" sign.
| I'm sure there are some cases with EU-funding, as I've
| read about a couple of cases in the news, but it's not
| widespread at all. I've only seen such signs in EU proper
| (e.g. Lithuania).
|
| The whole premise "someone funded a playground in my
| neighbor's backyard, I have no other options. Bomb them
| NOW!" is beyond ridiculous.
|
| They could also fund our playgrounds, if it's as
| effective, as you claim. In any case that would be
| muuuuuch cheaper than starting a war with hundreds of
| thousands dying, sanctions and all that.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "We invaded with tanks because the other guy funded a
| playground" is a hell of a take.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Some Saudis that we betrayed in Iraq flew some planes
| into some buildings in America so we spend two decades in
| Afghanistan, kicking in doors and blowing up weddings,
| mosques and schools as we attempt to install a pedophile
| government unsuccessfully.
|
| If Americans wanted the moral high ground here we
| shouldn't have traded it for Raytheon's bottom line.
|
| We have no leg to stand on and weak leadership so Russia
| made it's move.
| ericmay wrote:
| I agree. Once Putin had Trump there in power he sensed
| that the country was weak and decided to take action
| thinking that the Americans were too preoccupied with
| trying to be some semblance of government and
| international relations back to order once Biden won the
| election.
|
| Problem was that the Biden admin actually has experience
| and capabilities, and the Ukrainians decided to fight for
| their country and now Russia is finding out that they
| made a pretty poor move based on faulty assumptions.
|
| > We have no leg to stand on
|
| 1) At some point we get our legs to stand on back -
| supporting Ukraine actually has gone a long way in the
| eyes of Europe and allies in the Pacific.
|
| 2) Not having a leg to stand on doesn't matter because we
| can do wrong things and then also criticize others when
| they do wrong things.
|
| 3) EU member states and other nations have legs to stand
| on and they also support the American position on
| Ukraine.
| [deleted]
| nicoburns wrote:
| It remains the case that Russia didn't have to invade
| Ukraine and the US didn't have to invade Afghanistan.
| Both wars are morally reprehensible.
| toast0 wrote:
| > US didn't have to invade Afghanistan.
|
| If we didn't, there would have been an Afghanistan war
| _gap_.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Now do Yemen, Iraq (first and second time), Pakistan,
| Libya and Syria. Then do Vietnam, then consider the
| support and armament of Israel and finish up with decades
| of CIA meddling and installation of brutal dictatorships
| all around the globe.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Now do Ukraine.
|
| What about US actions elsewhere makes Russia's invasion
| moral?
| willcipriano wrote:
| We have politicians here that voted in favor of those war
| crimes, demanding that Russians are punished for theirs.
| Let's start at home if war crimes are something we care
| about if not we can shut our hypocrite mouths.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: 'theres
| actually zero difference between good & bad things. you
| imbecile. you fucking moron'" -
| https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312
| willcipriano wrote:
| Worlds most obese man calls women fat.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| So? Can't that be accurate?
|
| The end of the Nazis and the Holocaust doesn't become a
| bad thing just because the Soviets were involved. Helping
| Ukraine resist a clear war of aggression doesn't become a
| bad thing just because the US is part of that helping.
| Hell, it's _nice_ to see most of the world chip in on a
| more morally black-and-white scenario than is typical
| over the last 70 years.
|
| If you think Russia and the US are on equal moral footing
| with regards to the Ukraine question, you're the @dril
| tweet.
| willcipriano wrote:
| It can be accurate but she is also totally within her
| rights to not listen to him. Do as I say not as I do has
| never been effective. If we want less war we need to set
| an example not raise the share price of our private
| defence contractors at the expense of civilians while
| wagging our finger.
|
| Also the powers that be in the US want a war in Ukraine
| as much as Putin does. Probably moreso. They are selling
| a lot of killing machines.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > It can be accurate but she is also totally within her
| rights to not listen to him.
|
| She might not be wise to. An obese doctor advising an
| obese patient to lose weight because of health problems
| still has a potentially valid point. The obese doctor
| might even have _more_ useful perspective than another
| doctor on the issue.
|
| > If we want less war we need to set an example...
|
| I'm pretty sure that's what we're doing in Ukraine. China
| certainly would be wise to consider what a Taiwan
| invasion would look like if the US and allies decided to
| assist in a similar fashion.
|
| > Also the powers that be in the US want a war in Ukraine
| as much as Putin does. Probably moreso. They are selling
| a lot of killing machines.
|
| Sure. Ted Bundy and I both like to eat; that doesn't
| automatically make eating bad. This is precisely why we
| have to evaluate the actual specific scenario in question
| on its merits.
| willcipriano wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure that's what we're doing in Ukraine.
|
| If we wanted to set an example we would declare war on
| Russia. Instead we send billions of dollars into a the
| unaccountable void that is the most corrupt country in
| Europe.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > If we wanted to set an example we would declare war on
| Russia.
|
| This is not an argument made in good faith.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Look man, if really believe in this stuff the military is
| really struggling to find recruits right now. A lot of
| people are disillusioned with the forever wars as their
| nations infrastructure crumbles around them, costs rise
| to unsustainable levels and their streets are full of
| homeless. They watch the VA fail to serve veterans and
| remember the lies they were told by the elderly
| politicians who still haven't been replaced. You on the
| other hand appear to have strong convictions about this
| conflict, rather than costing my daughter her future via
| debt spending are you willing to be the boots on the
| ground to make sure justice is served?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| My boots on the ground mean nuclear holocaust due to open
| war between Russia and NATO, which probably impacts your
| daughter a bit. If you'd told a Cold Warrior in the 80s
| it'd cost 10% of a single year's military budget to
| kneecap Russia's military without firing a shot, they'd
| have laughed at you; it's probably the most effective
| military spending we've done since WWII.
|
| Americans are simultaneously down on "forever wars" and
| supportive of Ukraine assistance. Your attempt to connect
| the two concepts doesn't seem to be a widely shared
| position in the American public.
| willcipriano wrote:
| > My boots on the ground mean nuclear holocaust due to
| open war between Russia and NATO, which probably impacts
| your daughter a bit.
|
| Oh but if you were to say, build a fighter jet and then
| go to Ukraine and teach the Ukrainians on how to use the
| jet to kill Russians, there is no way that will result in
| nuclear war? I'll take that as a no on the "go die for
| the war machine" plan.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| There's direct evidence of that, yes. HIMARs, Bradleys,
| etc. all active in Ukraine, but importantly, manned by
| _Ukrainians_. We 're also clearly providing plenty of
| training and intelligence support.
|
| NATO troops actively shooting folks in the Donbas would
| be a very different scenario, one we're rightly avoiding.
| For the sake of folks like your daughter.
| willcipriano wrote:
| But if I am to believe the claims, this guy is off his
| rocker. Our activity doesn't reduce his nuclear
| capabilities at all, in fact it buys him time! He
| recently developed supersonic missles, his capabilities
| are increasing by leaps and bounds. Provocative action
| that isn't remotely decisive is the exact opposite of
| what you'd do here if that was the actual concern. You'd
| either cut off the head or do nothing.
| hkpack wrote:
| It was not inevitable, it was a decision, a choice made
| by specific people.
|
| They do everything in their power to make you believe
| that is was inevitable to divert the blame.
|
| Same with Taiwan. It is a choice for China to make - to
| invade or not.
| stickyricky wrote:
| ?? Has the West moved east or did Eastern Europe run to
| the West out of fear of their neighbor?
|
| But yes. US influence snuck up on Russia and tricked
| those countries into being scared of it. Its all so clear
| now...
| jmartrican wrote:
| How do you deduce that the foundry's will be scuttled? I'm
| not saying they won't be. But I can foresee a world where too
| many people who care about these foundry's regardless of
| which political party is in charge, would prevent them from
| being scuttled. And also, China might have insiders in Taiwan
| that might prevent the scuttling and make sure they are
| preserved.
| dTal wrote:
| It wouldn't take many disgruntled employees to scuttle it
| themselves. It's much easier to ruin delicate expensive
| equipment than to preserve it in working order.
| jmartrican wrote:
| These workers have opinions and their opinions might not
| be the same as yours. They might not be as pro-western as
| you may believe. They also have imagination and can
| imagine a world where they are better off under China
| with this equipment working then under China without this
| equipment working. Either way, the point is that its not
| a sure thing that this equipment would be scuttled.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > better off under China with this equipment working then
| under China without this equipment working.
|
| This. If an enemy is invading your country and looks
| likely to succeed, then the important thing for you as a
| citizen isn't defending your homeland - it is making sure
| you have a future in the new country under new
| governance. That might well involve being the guy with
| all the knowledge to get the chip fab going again.
|
| The US hasn't lost many wars in their homeland, so most
| citizens haven't really thought of their options...
| dTal wrote:
| To reiterate: it wouldn't take many.
| philwelch wrote:
| It doesn't matter how many people _don 't_ want the
| foundries to be "scuttled"; if enough people _do_ , and
| they have the means to do so, it will happen. It might be
| the Taiwanese military, or an allied military, that
| actually does it.
| te_chris wrote:
| It's a known and well disclosed part of Taiwan's deterrent
| strategy.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| Taiwan relies on external materials as much or more than
| Manhattan. They have at best under a month's worth of food on
| the island, and other raw materials supply is measured in
| days.
|
| One thing people miss with the china/taiwan discussion is
| that China doesn't need to make a single violent move towards
| Taiwan to subdue it. A naval blockade would force Taiwan's
| capitulation in almost no time at all.
|
| Even a forceful blockade wouldn't be totally necessary, if
| China just passed any sort of sanction stopping the export of
| materials or food to Taiwan, prices would immediately become
| unsustainable on the island and it would also have to
| capitulate.
| FredPret wrote:
| Never discount the possibility that someone / thing important
| might be an idiot
| bitwize wrote:
| The fact that Taiwan exists disrupts the official narrative
| that there is only one China and its ideology is Maoist
| communism. Reunifying China is thus kind of a priority.
| philwelch wrote:
| There's a lot of people who ask questions about history or
| geopolitics that amount to, "why would <country> pursue
| <goal>?" when <goal> is a central ideologically motivating
| factor for <faction-that-controls-country>. The classic
| example being Germany's 1941 invasion of Russia--often
| derided as a strategic blunder in hindsight, except the
| rulers of Germany in 1941 had the conquest of Russia as their
| primary geopolitical goal in the first place. Likewise, the
| existence of Taiwan outside of CCP control is contrary to the
| goal of unifying all of China under CCP control.
| mullingitover wrote:
| There's small matter of the gigantic trove of treasure.
|
| The Kuomintang took huge amounts of priceless Chinese
| artifacts when they fled to Taiwan, which are now in the
| National Palace Museum[1]. There's a case to be made that the
| CCP was on an iconoclastic spree and there was good reason to
| take the artifacts to Taiwan for safekeeping, but the fact
| remains that vast amounts of priceless Chinese relics are now
| in Taiwan. China would like them back and is willing to do
| more than ask politely. Taiwan can blow up the fabs, sure,
| but they're probably not going to blow up the relics. Chinese
| leadership would gain a historic amount of face by bringing
| them home.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Palace_Museum
| snapcaster wrote:
| You think these relics would be motivation for invasion?
| mullingitover wrote:
| I'd say _a_ reason, not necessarily _the_ reason. Taiwan
| rubbed China 's face in it for decades, it seems like a
| long-held grudge:
|
| > During the 1960s and 1970s, the National Palace Museum
| was used by the Kuomintang to support its claim that the
| Republic of China was the sole legitimate government of
| all China, in that it was the sole preserver of
| traditional Chinese culture amid social change and the
| Cultural Revolution in mainland China, and tended to
| emphasize Chinese nationalism.
|
| Even though, if you read further down in the article,
| there's not as much acrimony about it in recent years.
| Still, China has had dreams to invade Taiwan for decades,
| mostly for nationalist reasons, and this is likely one of
| the reasons that's higher in the list.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > I still don't understand why China would possibly want to
| try and invade Taiwan?
|
| China has no access to the open ocean. The US has bases and
| strong allies (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines,
| Singapore) surrounding it.
| jandrese wrote:
| If China managed to have their oceangoing trade sanctioned
| by the US and their allies, who are they trading with?
| Russia? The Middle East? Both of which the country shares
| enormous land borders with. Not to mention that this would
| involve the US crushing its own economy in order to create
| the sanctions. About the only thing that could trigger a
| response like that would be an invasion of an allied
| country...
|
| As far as a casus belli it is a stretch at best. The kind
| of thing you have to put forward because the population at
| large wouldn't accept your real reason.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Are these FALD backlights for LCDs, or full-resolution LED
| arrays?
| enticeing wrote:
| The latter.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| microLED is full-resolution LED arrays. The former is miniLED.
| ErneX wrote:
| These are self emitting, it will have the good things of OLED
| without its degradation and probably more brightness.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Apple for long time tried to buy JBD Display, they sent their
| due-diligencers, which inspected everything millimetre by
| millimetre, and then poached their process head.
|
| JBD then armed itself with lawyers, and for long tried to
| frustrate Apple from reproducing the technology.
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