geopolitical clash between the United States and China hinges on the tiniest of technologies, chips and other components that are essential to nearly every smartphone, laptop computer and cellular network on Earth. And the best ones— for now — are made only by America and its allies.
China’s renewed commitment to what it calls “semiconductor independence” likely already has begun, say industry experts and analysts — and will continue even if the current trade dispute gets resolved in negotiations. The components in the latest accelerometers are microscopic — the term MEMS means “microelectromechanical systems” — making them impossible to simply take apart and copy. To build one, a company needs to develop the technology from the ground up, or somehow acquire the detailed schematics showing how they are assembled.
Madden said his company assumed Huawei would take about three years to make its own version, ample time for Madden’s company to profit. But Huawei had its own version in just two months, Madden recalled. Building an FPGA is incredibly complex. A single one is comprised of billions of transistors, all of which can be physically reprogrammed on the fly with computer software. But there’s no standard coding language for FPGAs. Companies that build them also need to create customized software that can interact with each one of those transistors perfectly. That’s a herculean task, even for big companies like California-based Intel, which paid $17 billion to acquire FPGA maker Altera in 2015.
Even before that happened, Chinese companies had failed to make some of the most advanced components in a range of major products, including for its rollout of 5G, the high-speed next generation of wireless technology expected to allow a range of new products and services including self-driving cars.