Employees Arrested Over Alleged Theft of Chip Tech for Apple A20 Chip

[Jeeve Stubbs]

China's prosperity and advancement is mostly due to that kind of theft on an industrial scale. It has an astonishing network of spies to steal ideas and technologies, which its companies then shamelessly copy, and sell for less (since spying costs are less than R&D costs…).

 

[Jeeve Stubbs]

2 nanometers? then 1 nanometer, and then what's next after that?

We enter picometer territory.

 

[tim_apple]

2 nanometers? then 1 nanometer, and then what's next after that?

0 nanometers.

 

[grammatica]

iykyk

 

[NachoGazpachoCamacho]

Giving a new meaning to the term "A20 gate." (I am an old nerd.)

 

[emulator]

Finally something actually interesting... Can wait for the movie🍿

There's already one, called Hang 'Em High

 

[svish]

Never good to steal. Good that the culprits have been caught.

 

[Jackbequickly]

This is why communist china has it before we do!

 

[HMFIC03]

Ch-y-na

 

[Nilhum]

I always wondered how just one or two chips couldn’t be stolen where they manufacture these chips. Millions and millions of chips are made. I’m more surprised stories like this are rare.

 

[zarmanto]

I always wondered how just one or two chips couldn’t be stolen where they manufacture these chips. Millions and millions of chips are made. I’m more surprised stories like this are rare.

Stealing the chip itself doesn't net you much; what they really want is the details about the fabrication process for making those denser 2nm chips. If you know what novel steps your competitor used, you can copy those steps and apply them to your own chips, thus reducing your own R&D cost/time and potentially coming very close to catching up with that competitor.