Re:Micron Chip Sales Banned in China on Patent Case
by patfla on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @03:12PM
(#17452873)
> half a dozen
No, the market has concentrated and is very largely dominated by just 3 companies: Samsung and SK Hynix in Korea and Micron. I don't think China has a whole lot of choice as regards memory chips in the volumes that they need. And getting new supply up and running is a yrs long process.
I'm saying that Trump's "aggressive trade policy" (senseless surprise tarrifs) was the impetus for this particular action (senseless surprise import ban). Absent that, the IP theft would have continued quietly (as it always has, everywhere) and the destabilizing trade war wouldn't be happening.
You seem to be taking an absolutist perspective: IP theft[1] must not ever be tolerated and any action to prevent it, however destabilizing, must be taken. And that's how you get trade wars (real wars too, FWIW). This was a nice modern economy we had while it lasted.
[1] I mean, come on. It's ?!@#! DRAM and flash. There are a half dozen manufacturers all over the world making exactly this same junk. It's not like sudden "Chinese" threat to Micron was going to introduce competition in any way that Samsung and Fujitsu were not already providing. Please.