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Senators Demand Apple Commit to Not Buying Chinese Memory Chips

I hope Apple tosses Chuck's letter and does it anyways. This is ridiculous to expect Apple to either pay extra for allocation from Samsung/Hynix/Micron when this would only be related to the China market. Because as soon as Apple agrees to not use Chinese manufacturers chips, the senate will start whining that a new iPhone costs 1/3 more than it did last year and complain that Apple doesn't absorb the cost. People like Schumer should have no say on tech-based policy decisions. These guys are too old and not in tune to the semiconductor market and the rapid developments and changes surrounding them. If they don't like more affordable Chinese competitors, then maybe they should figure out a way to replicate what they're doing. Otherwise it's time for them to get off their "Made in America" soapbox and admit that some things just make more sense to be made in countries that can do it cheaper with equal quality
 
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People's Liberation Army (which is China's Communist Party Army) must be a joke name, like Make America Great Again.

Regardless, unless there is a way to outfit RAM chips with microcontrollers and firmware, per chip, what's the big deal? We get practically everything from China already.
 
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magbarn said:
So how much are the scumbags at SK Hynix, Micron, Samsung paying these senators? These greedy companies have made more over the last 12 months than the whole time they’ve been making memory. Absolutely obscene.
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RAM makers and/or AI companies. Capable hardware being too expensive to purchase helps drive choices to be reliant on Claude or ChatGPT. Just buy a laptop with 8GB of ram and let AI and a bunch of other SaaS handle all your creative/compute heavy needs. The more compute you don't buy for yourself is more tokens you can buy from them.
 
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Even if Apple really, really wanted to, and costumers purchasing power didn’t matter, they physically couldn’t get their chips or parts of them made in the USA. Not for the domestic market and definitely not for their global supply chain.
Laughable lawmakers all around.
Even if they are seeing a real problem, they could have seen it years in advance by now and could have helped those industries more. Demanding Apple to achieve artificial and impossible goals isn’t the play here.
 
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Parowdy said:
This administration is always acting as though they are the first to realize something while consistently being the last.
Even if Apple really, really wanted to, and costumers purchasing power didn’t matter, they physically couldn’t get their chips or parts of them made in the USA. Not for the domestic market and definitely not for their global supply chain.
Laughable lawmakers all around.
Even if they are seeing a real problem, they could have seen it years in advance by now and could have helped those industries more. Demanding Apple to achieve artificial and impossible goals isn’t the play here.
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This has nothing to do with "this administration" and everything to do with a handful of luddite senators on both sides of the aisle.
 
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The Micron RAM fab being built in Idaho will be nearly, or completely, devoted to making high-bandwidth memory for AI data centers anyway, not consumer device DRAM of the sort that's in short supply now. But making HBM in the US might be a good idea anyway.

Apple is apparently working with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to co-develop a Mobile High Bandwidth Memory architecture, both because it'll allow Apple's mobile devices to run local AI faster, and because it might also help Apple sidestep, in a couple years, the ongoing shortage of regular consumer DRAM. It's a case of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em", but with benefits.
 
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“We will only use Chinese chips in china.”

IMG_0095.webp
 
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The big three memory manufacturers completely control the market, and are now price gouging (proven by record setting revenue and profits). By forcing Apple to overpay by restricting them from seeking alternative lower priced suppliers, consumers are directly hurt by the subsequent price hikes … or do the politicians want Apple to eat those costs too? Whose side are politicians on? Remember Apple is also a US company. How about politicians legislating to curb industry price gouging or cutting Micron’s subsidies if they do not expand domestic production capability. Politicians = Corrupt, Idiots.
 
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MacRumors said:
He says Apple's plan would harm the U.S. semiconductor supply chain
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What US semiconductor supply chain?

If the US was capable of advanced electronics manufacturing we wouldn't have this problem.

But for some reason we aren't and haven't been for decades, and Chuck doesn't seem to have done anything about that. And he's been around the whole time.
 
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