[ausjke]

Huawei had to license synopsys/cadence/mentor to design their chip(which is using ARM core), if US really wants to play hardball Huawei's IC design can be killed nearly instantly once those CAD design software is forbidden. In the meantime I heard Huawei etc bought a few years' license right before the trade war, they're actually well prepared.

Another way is to restrict chip manufacturing, Taiwan pretty much owns the best technology for that(TSMC), Intel/Samsung has some, Huawei has none.

And you have Android to some degree, without Android there is no Smartphone dominance from China as of now. Open source in general helped China to catch up and overtake the west extremely efficiently, you don't need any business spies anymore, just download/modify/profit.

At the moment USA still has the possibility to contain IC ecosystem if it really wants to do that. In 10~20 years it will be a different story though, by then USA might not have much leverage if anything at all left.

[spectramax]

I am not sure about large companies, essentially every small to mid-sized PCB design/manf company in China uses pirated EDA software, primarily Altium Designer, OrCAD and Mentor Graphics. In fact, piracy of sofware is encouraged by the CCP - I won't name the websites, but in order to get a download link you need a WeChat or Baidu account which is ultimately linked to Citizen ID or Passport through phone number (OTP). Yes, I setup a Windows VM to get access to these sites where you need to install a Baidu download manager in your operating system.

There is also specific Chinese forum lingo that is used to thank people who post pirated software ("1st floor", "2nd floor", etc.)

[dirtyid]

>At the moment USA still has the possibility to contain IC ecosystem if it really wants to do that

It's been doing that nonstop since before Trump, Trump is merely broadcasting the actions publicly. Apart from Fujian Jinhua last year, CFUIUS / DOD / USTrade has blocked many Chinese IC acquisition attempts (including EU owned), last month US pressured TMSC to stop dealing with Huawei, ASML held back EUV delivery shortly after. The way things are escalating, the hypothetical shooting war over Taiwan might be triggered by TSMC drama instead of independence.

[xvilka]

It's just possible to invest in the open-source solutions then, like e.g. Yosys, SymbiFlow, KiCAD, etc

[baybal2]

> if US really wants to play hardball Huawei's IC design can be killed nearly instantly once those CAD design software is forbidden.

Latest versions of Virtuosso are sold in underground passageways in Beijing for $4 a pop