[seanmcdirmid]

Sure, they are putting out cheap low-end chips that are getting used.

But they are still way behind on process. I believe its 35-50 nm, while Intel, the Koreans, and the Taiwanese right now are at 14 nm. If you are building the world's fastest super computer, you are putting Intel or similarly fabbed chips in there...they are not putting their own chips in!

Then there is also the problem of having their own designs to fab. There was a big scandal a few years back where the "native microprocessor" was actually based on an old design that some professor stole from a company in the states!