Chinese manufacturers frequently make counterfeit parts and stamp fake US company logos on them. Even if the parts were authentic, they certainly weren't sold directly to Iran. Middlemen in other countries not under sanctions buy them, and then re-export them. There is literally no way for US companies to prevent this, they don't have that kind of reach or power.

It is astounding how posters here are bending over backwards to deny all responsibility. Russia is using American parts to kill Ukrainians. It doesn't matter where the parts were manufactured or how they got the parts. Why doesn't anyone here understand this?

If someone picks up a brick and smashes someone’s head in, does it particularly matter who made the brick?

Statistically, the most widely made bricks would be ‘at fault’. But how does that matter, exactly?

You can try to ban bricks from your country, which hey, maybe it could happen. But if they were having a brick shortage, couldn’t they just buy the same bricks from a neighboring country, since these items are so cheap and common, it’s not like it’s possible to serialize and track each one.

These are the electronic equivalents of bricks.

If the brick has the company's logo on it, I'm sure it will be great for sales and general impressions. What is commonly believed, even if entirely wrong, can have detrimental effects. It certainly isn't a good thing what was discovered about Russian drones, and it certainly does matter. Remington didn't kill those children, and you can get guns anywhere, so you tell me why Remington settled for $73M. This is a very easy thing to understand. It is amazing how stubbornly dumb intelligent individuals can sometimes be.

Bwahah. Folks do hit pieces all the time on companies to do some thing - extract some money (like with Remington), or try to force some change (like the Ukrainians trying to ‘name and shame’ companies to cause a larger chilling effect for suppliers and start folks like TI cracking down on their supply chain).

TI not manufacturing those chips won’t stop Iran using identical chips though. It’s one of many ‘try all the things’ tactics from a belligerent at war. And I can’t blame them for trying. I’m sure it will cause some minor issues here and there, and every little bit helps.

It’s still transparent bullshit and manipulation of the public.

The part I have to laugh at is arguments like this that take the manipulation at face value, and go after folks pointing out it’s bullshit on a technical site.

It would be like going on a Gun forum and going after folks pointing out the Remington smear campaigns (or any number of other manufacturers) was transparent bullshit to try to get cash or force them out of business by those ideologically opposed to them.

Like what do you expect but a bunch of folks going ‘that’s bullshit’?

Remington was not forced to settle. Remington chose to settle.

What is your point exactly?

They chose to settle after sufficient pressure and wild accusations were brought to bear publicly no?

If the lawsuit was kept confidential and not turned into a high profile socio-political football being used to target them, then I think you might have a point, as the case could be about matters of law and fact.

But it wasn’t, was it?

One would call that ‘forced’ in most contexts. If it wasn’t in the context of an active lawsuit, perhaps even extortion. But lawyers get a pass for this, of course.

I don’t see what the big deal is. You could order a whole reel of voltage regulators off digikey and they’d fit in a backpack. There’s no way to stop the movement of low level ICs around the world no matter who/where they were produced. It would be like trying prevent Iran from getting a hold of American nails.

It isn't voltage regulators and ICs. The poster that said so just made that up. It's computer chips.

Voltage regulators and ICs are often chips.

So are potato chips, that doesn't make them CPUs. This is called a category error.

No, potato chips are not ‘chips’ in this context.

CPUs are a type of IC, commonly known as a ‘chip’ in this context. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit]

That’s called ‘not knowing what the definition of something is’.

ICs aren't necessarily CPUs.

But all CPUs are ICs - and hence chips.

Also, there are many voltage regulator ICs (and hence chips), and a great many other ICs (and hence chips) used in pretty much every piece of electronic equipment now a days.

Motor controllers, microprocessors, etc.

Literally even children’s stuffed toys have them.

> It isn't […] ICs. […] It's computer chips.

"Chip" is the layman term for an integrated circuit, or IC.

I did not realize this. I thought a computer chip, meaning a CPU, was distinct from the IC on which it was implemented. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

In case you don't want just my word on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Computer_chip&redirect=no ; the first paragraph of the linked page for ICs notes it, as well.

So IC = CPU and vice versa? They are synonyms?

Socrates was a man. I am a man. I am Socrates.

If I buy an iPhone from someone on eBay, did Apple sell me that iPhone?

Pretty sure no one would think they did.

But it does have their logo on it!

And if that iPhone was somehow utilized in genocide, would that be bad for eBay, or Apple? Or not bad? Good!

One would hope we’d blame the one doing the genocide?

Unless of course Apple sent a container of free iPhone’s after they’d laid out their genocidal plan. So far zero indication that’s happened though, right?

Or is that too much to ask now a days?

This entire thread is the height of ridiculous absurdity.

I was only replying to "So less than 12 of the components were manufactured in Asia, while 40 have been manufactured by US companies." My point is that the nationality of a company has no bearing on where they manufacture their parts.

But while yes these companies should bear responsibility if they are selling their parts to sanctioned countries, this is unlikely. There is just no way to track the real-time user of every commodity product - even if there were would you really want to live in that world?

*edit grammar

> There is just no way to track the real-time user of every commodity product

This is somewhat of a tu quoque argument much like the many others here claiming these products are commonly supplied by many companies worldwide, and it will have absolutely no bearing on the reputations of the companies involved, nor can it remove their involvement in the violent deaths of innocent lives.