If those chips helped Israel kill more people, then Schumer would be all for them.
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Senators Demand Apple Commit to Not Buying Chinese Memory Chips
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I can see a number of sides to this.
- Restrict China’s revenue from memory.
- Make us less reliant on China for essential parts.
- Incentivize US companies to produce more, which also adds to the jobs.
- Prevent hardware backdoors which would be essential to national security.
- Schumer’s constituents want this.
- He probably owns stock — unfortunately every politician doubles in insider trading.
But, if they stick to what they know we would never hear from them! Oh, wait....
Quu
macrumors 68040
DRAM is a commodity. Them trying to stop this is like telling a company they can't buy Coffee beans from a country because the military in that country drinks Coffee.
Everyone uses DRAM. Whether it's your dishwasher, TV, car or yes, even military in every country.. they all use it. To say CXMT is connected to the peoples liberation army is to say BYD and CATL are connected to the peoples liberation army (the two biggest battery makers on earth with 55% combined market share globally) and yet where is the outcry there? almost every device we use that contains a battery has components from these two just like DRAM.
All this is, in reality is a thinly veiled attempt to prop up Micron which is the sole US DRAM manufacturer. And the reality is, DRAM is quickly becoming scarce, not just expensive but actually hard to obtain at any price point. Especially for system integrators and OEM's. If we don't open the market to more players we will reach a point where companies like Apple will have to pick and choose which products to launch.
And as we know, supply and demand drives pricing. Look how much consumers in America are having to pay for everything. Having DRAM be hyper expensive doesn't help Chucks constituents on the ground. Having just three global DRAM suppliers doesn't help anyone’s pocket.
On a personal level, do I care about China entering? no. I don't care who enters the market, again DRAM is a commodity. I don't care which country supplies it.
Everyone uses DRAM. Whether it's your dishwasher, TV, car or yes, even military in every country.. they all use it. To say CXMT is connected to the peoples liberation army is to say BYD and CATL are connected to the peoples liberation army (the two biggest battery makers on earth with 55% combined market share globally) and yet where is the outcry there? almost every device we use that contains a battery has components from these two just like DRAM.
All this is, in reality is a thinly veiled attempt to prop up Micron which is the sole US DRAM manufacturer. And the reality is, DRAM is quickly becoming scarce, not just expensive but actually hard to obtain at any price point. Especially for system integrators and OEM's. If we don't open the market to more players we will reach a point where companies like Apple will have to pick and choose which products to launch.
And as we know, supply and demand drives pricing. Look how much consumers in America are having to pay for everything. Having DRAM be hyper expensive doesn't help Chucks constituents on the ground. Having just three global DRAM suppliers doesn't help anyone’s pocket.
On a personal level, do I care about China entering? no. I don't care who enters the market, again DRAM is a commodity. I don't care which country supplies it.
Millions of dollars easily, not mentioning the fact that senators themselves have masive stock portfolios they trade off with insider information
Lucky736
macrumors 65816
Yep, was basically just writing this. Bunch of scumbags and frauds. I'd rather buy a used car from a weekly pay lot with the promise it "runs like new" than trust them.
johnsawyercjs
macrumors 68000
Schumer's annual financial disclosures and periodic transaction reports show no individual stock holdings in Micron Technology or other memory manufacturers like Samsung, SK Hynix, or Western Digital. He lobbied to have Micron build its fab in New York State, but that's for political reasons, regional economic development, and to fulfill federal legislation, namely the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, for which he was one of the primary architects. It provides over $50 billion in federal subsidies to build US semiconductor facilities.
johnsawyercjs
macrumors 68000
That's already been done, in compliance with the STOCK Act (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act), under which members of Congress are legally required to publicly disclose all individual stock transactions, holdings, and trades made by themselves, their spouses, or dependent children within 45 days.
Schumer's annual financial disclosures and periodic transaction reports show no stock holdings in Micron Technology or other memory manufacturers like Samsung, SK Hynix, or Western Digital.
johnsawyercjs
macrumors 68000
People should get more comfortable with the idea of checking whether their ideas and suspicions are backed up by findable facts. The devices they use to post these things can double as fact-finding tools prior to posting.
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Buy the best memory chips for the cheapest price possible. I don’t really care if they come from the People’s Republic of China that’s where a lot of stuff is already built.
FatLouie
macrumors 6502a
I do not care who Apple buys memory from. At this point, the price increases Apple has made will not go back down anyway. Might as well buy less expensive memory.
I7guy
macrumors Westmere
Our legislators should Treat memory like a utility and regulate the price or force memory manufactures to first allocate memory to customers who sell to users.
johnsawyercjs
macrumors 68000
This is a logical argument since we already buy so much stuff from China that, no doubt, helps fund the CCP and its People's Liberation Army (including fluffy slippers, kid's toys, etc.), but Congress (and others) want to try to stem that to some small degree by trying to bring some semiconductor manufacturing and the jobs for it back to the US. In-US semiconductor manufacturing is also a strategic national security priority (at least to some degree sometimes).
But none of those current plans or goals, including the Micron plant being built in Boise, include bringing the manufacture of consumer DRAM to the US, used in smartphones, computers, etc. MIcron just wants its Boise plant to make more high-bandwidth memory for data centers, though if Apple follows through on its plans to develop mobile HBM, that may work out.
I guess the issue comes down to whether US device makers and their consumers are better off paying China the higher (maybe lower?) prices for RAM, or to continue paying South Korea through Samsung and SK Hynix, and Micron (though it's US-based, its main consumer DRAM fabs are in Japan and Taiwan, while their Virginia plant makes RAM for cars, industrial purposes, and defense, not consumer computer devices). Currently no consumer device-level DRAM fabs are being built or planned in the US, so we don't have the choice of both making and buying that RAM here anyway. Our closest current US option is to just keep buying it from Micron, but made overseas.
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Setting aside the corruption supporting Micron's price gouging, how is it US Senate business to dictate if a phone built in China for sales in China can use Chinese parts?
johnsawyercjs
macrumors 68000
Because Apple, the OEM, is a US-based company, and the companies (mainly in China) that make and assemble the parts into finished products are "just" contract manufacturers for Apple. As it says on the box, "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China."
Under US law, US corporations, their executives, and US citizens are subject to US laws wherever they operate. Even if the assembly line is in Shenzhen and the customer is in Shanghai, the decision to approve, sign contracts for, or integrate a component like CXMT DRAM into an Apple product line rests with executives and engineers working for the American parent company.
These laws are intended to reduce how much American citizens contribute to the maintenance and growth of foreign entities, particularly their governments and militaries, and especially when those entities aren't considered allies.
I don't know how much benefit the CCP and PLA would really get from Apple buying RAM from China's CXMT and NAND storage chips from YMTC, but the US government feels it would be substantial, and they're probably right. If these Chinese companies were to develop RAM to Apple's standards, with Apple's help, that would open the floodgates to other companies buying these chips too, providing billions of dollars to these Chinese companies and their state backers. It would also benefit China's military semiconductor manufacturers. Being China, they'd stomp on rival manufacturers, and the whole world would be back to sourcing these parts from only a very limited number of manufacturers, maybe fewer than we have now.
This seems to be another case of something that might not be great, but the next-possible alternative might actually be worse, maybe not immediately, but not long after.
This was theater. Apple’s gonna do what Apple’s gonna do, slippery slope or not. As others have said, this will affect Micron and some of their shareholders may be in congress. 🙂
mentaluproar
macrumors 68000
Meanwhile Congress just quietly swept that effort to ban them from trading stocks under the rug.
Micron doesn't make memory for Apple anymore. So, that argument doesn't work.
I'm getting tired of Schumer being wrong or weak on everything. What a gift Ternus will have waiting for him on the desk in the corner office: A strongly worded letter from Chuck Schumer!
New York, please do something about that guy.
New York, please do something about that guy.
It wasn't swept under the rugs. It was a corrupt bill to give Republicans the ability to rig elections. Stock trading was the lie placed on it top of it to fool the rubes. Notice, it didn't outlaw trading by the executive branch. Trump would veto any bill that prevented him from profiting on his manipulations of the stock market.