I don't care about x86 or ARM or any other particular chip type, but I do want to be able to mix and match hardware and software/OS. I'm glad the M-series chips are ARM, and an open ecosystem.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Xiaomi Trademarks Indicate Plan to Build Apple Silicon-Like Family of Custom Chips
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I don't care about x86 or ARM or any other particular chip type, but I do want to be able to mix and match hardware and software/OS. I'm glad the M-series chips are ARM, and an open ecosystem.
Huawei has a really inspiring story after all these bans. Now they are releasing their pc processors, trying to stay in line with competitors, and laptops with their own OS. HarmonyOS is an actually independent ecosystem in an Apple way, unlike Samsung/Xiaomi/etc, which depend on Android/Windows. I can only imagine how challenging it is to build something like that and not fail in the process. Even Google cannot replace Android with their Fuchsia after a decade of development, maybe they should try to ban themselves to evolve too.
If (If) Android became the sole domain of Pixel handsets then they'd have carte blanche to redesign it however they saw fit without having to worry about 3rd parties and could replicate Apple's stack.
ARM isn't really an open ecosystem under most definitions of the word "open."
The company you're referring to is ASML (Netherlands) doesn't make the chips - they etch the circuits onto the silicone that ends up being chips. AFAIK, they've only been banned from exporting their most cutting edge lithography equipment to China (EUV? - stuff that works below ~5nm?) Anyway, as another poster already pointed out, Xiaomi lets TSMC in Taiwan do the actual manufacture and they obviously do have ASML's best equipment since they're doing Apple's chips (and also Qualcomm's ?)
It's open in the sense that it's not tied to particular company and most anyone can license and use it. Not open in the open-hardware, open-source sense.
that only makes sense if they were going to make exact replicas of apple silicon chips, which tsmc is not going to do for them
Yes I think someone else mentioned that as well. Basically they’re having the same company that makes Apple Silicon in Taiwan to make the chip.
I know Taiwan is considered China but they are not subject to the export ban like mainland China. My confusion was thinking they were going to make this new chip in mainland China
Yes, XRING O1 is built using TSMC's N3E process node. I'd say Qualcomm's Snapdragon family is the main target. Apple is probably happy someone else is putting pressure on Qualcomm.
I mean, they can very technically replicate those machines if they have enough data on those machines. Wont happen overnight but technically possible.
The most ban it can happen is prohibiting import to western world and that’s about it. It will have no issue selling in China and some other selected countries.
People forget that just counting China and India there’s almost 3 billion people. I think they’ll be okay not importing it into the USA 😂
And yet, you can. There are emulators for everything available on macOS. You don't have to pine away for that old Win31, Solaris x86, BeOS, or even OS/2 Warp. And on Apple Silicon you can run them much, much faster than they ever could run on the original hardware.
Maybe you haven't heard the good news about emulators?
Negative -- this is a false (and also needlessly inflammatory) statement. Please keep Chinese nationalistic rhetoric off this board.
The Chinese are the most capable people on the planet of producing high quality electronics, outside the few niche Japanese products that are still produced in Japan.
Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE are undergoing rapid expansion in chip manufacturing.
(I have a Huawei smartwatch that I purchased 2 years ago, which has now been replaced by a much better model. It lasts *2 full weeks* on a charge, and has essentially the same features as Apple's watch (I forget if Apple ever straightened out its blood pressure / Oxygen / health monitoring due to US government red tape but Huawei had all that from the start).
The Xiaomi phone I bought for $200 until it died 4 years later due to crappy Android software (it literally couldn't take an OS update without bricking) had a 6,000 mAh battery, 6.5" 120 Hz screen, dual SIMS, SD card storage, and a headphone jack.
The idea that the Chinese on the mainland are somehow incompetent at producing electronics (I guess people forget about FOXCONN and all the other huge mainland electronics manufacturers) as compared to the Chinese on Formosa is really ridiculous, and laughable to anyone outside the USA.
It's like claiming the Texans wont be able to produce Tesla cars just because Californians can because they have different governments (thats an analogy, not a claim).
The Chinese have the knowledge, cultural competency, and expertise to manufacture the world's top electronics. The Chinese on the mainland are not fundamentally different than the Chinese in Taiwan. They both speak the Chinese language, consider themselves Chinese, heck, even the name of Taiwan outside the USA is "Republic of China." Both the Republic of China and Peoples Republic of China are China. There is not some magic democracy dust that is sprinkled over Taiwanese workers that make them better smarter or brighter than mainlanders under their "communism" (which is a boomer-tier malaproprism that really needs to die off. Jim Rogers said the Chinese do capitalism better than the Americans 20 years ago).
I personally prefer Japanese electronics, but even my $6,500 flagship Nikon is no longer made there. China, of course produces a large amount of cheap and low quality products, but if you think China is not the leading economic powerhouse in the electronics industry you really need to visit or at least watch some independent sources who have visited or lived there.
Sorry but the Sinophobia on this board whenever Chinese manufacturing gets brought up is so tiresome.
Oh and off topic but related, there is no meaningful difference in manufacturing iphones in Foxconn Asian Factory #23156 in India versus Foxconn Asian Factory #23155 in Mainland China. You are not "screwing the Chinese" out of anything by manufacturing at its Indian subsidiary. You're actually making the Chinese wealthier as the labor costs are now lower in India lol. I see people here cheerleading such moves as morally good because of some wacky hatred of the mongoloid.
No. Huawei is listed as a company US firms cannot do business with due to being a part of the CCP. Docs can be sold to Chinese companies. So I don’t know where you get your information.
I'm still pissed we can't live boot linux on our Macbooks anymore. I did that weekly with Intel.
And that's not even an issue with the M1 chips--it's a "security" feature.....
Not yet...
It would be foolish to assume this will always be the case. There are multiple paths to finer lithography, and the specific path chosen by the West was mainly what seemed easiest at each step.
Options for finer lithography include
- multipatterning (already being used by China, and probably capable of being pushed further than it was in the West a few years ago by means of better optical correction ala CuLitho)
- nano-imprinting. Unclear how this one will play out, but Japan is still doggedly pushing at it.
- UV lithography but with a different light source (ie something other than Cymer's tin drop based laser)
- soft X-ray lithography, perhaps based on compact free electron lasers
- direct e-beam lithography. This is probably the most powerful solution but also, right now the most expensive (because it is slow). But given an incentive to simply create a massive factory of these things and stamp them out one after another...
Until February 17, 2025, the official US policy was that Taiwan was part of mainland China. The official policy now is some neutral wishy washy middle road position that does not recognize Taiwanese sovereignty.
All Chinese are taught there is one China, as well as hundreds of millions of others around the world (in no small part due to China's massive influence). But it's very much up for debate. I have a close Taiwanese friend, who very much wants to be independent, but it's very much up in the air and unsettled at this point.
For example, Taiwan is not officially recognized as an independent nation by the UN, nor by the majority of foreign nations (only 12 countries recognize Taiwanese sovereignty). By contrast, over 3/4 of UN members recognize Palestine as a sovereign state, and it would be laughable to call Palestine independent. It's a long road to an independent separate nation.
Long story short, although I personally enjoy discussing, learning, and reading about the history, culture and politics of these people, it's not a simple yes/no and quite off topic to discuss here.