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Sen. Marco Rubio slams U.S. approval of chip deal involving firm with ties to China’s Wise Road Capital

Daniel Nenni

Admin
Staff member
Republican Senator Marco Rubio took aim on Monday at U.S. regulatory approval of a bid by chip intellectual property company Alphawave to purchase U.S.-based OpenFive, alleging national security risks posed by Alphawave’s ties to China’s Wise Road Capital.

On Friday, the Toronto and London-based Alphawave, which licenses its technology to chipmakers to produce chips, said it had received all regulatory clearances, including from the powerful U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

The $210-million deal is expected to close next month.

But the deal has drawn fire from Republican China hawks in Congress, including the influential Rubio, who has advocated for CFIUS to review deals related to China that he saw as posing national security risks.

 
I have been through CIFUS, it is no laughing matter. The problem is that OpenFive, formerly Open-Silicon, is really "based" in India not the US. That is where all of the precious IP is, in India. Another misinformed politician. CIFUS knows this of course but Marco has a personal agenda or he didn't do his homework. Either way he does not get my support, ever.
 
I have been through CIFUS, it is no laughing matter. The problem is that OpenFive, formerly Open-Silicon, is really "based" in India not the US. That is where all of the precious IP is, in India. Another misinformed politician. CIFUS knows this of course but Marco has a personal agenda or he or didn't do his homework. Either way he does not get my support, ever.
In general, how important or significant are those OpenFIve's IPs?
 
I wonder if RISC V is the path forward for a Chinese Intel/AMD competitor. That would be pretty cool.
 
I wonder if RISC V is the path forward for a Chinese Intel/AMD competitor. That would be pretty cool.

I think the first target market for RISC-V is the current ARM's market. It will take a lot of resources and investment to compete against Intel/AMD at this moment.

But who has the advanced manufacturing capabilities to make those most advanced RISC-V chips? It will be those same leading edge fabs that make ARM and X86 chips. Then those Chinese fabless companies will face the same challenges they are facing today.
 
I think the first target market for RISC-V is the current ARM's market. It will take a lot of resources and investment to compete against Intel/AMD at this moment.
But who has the advanced manufacturing capabilities to make those most advanced RISC-V chips? It will be those same leading edge fabs that make ARM and X86 chips. Then those Chinese fabless companies will face the same challenges they are facing today.

I wonder if we will see an ARM/RISC-V China embargo as well? Clearly there are military applications. Someone should forewarn Marco Rubio!
 
I wonder if we will see an ARM/RISC-V China embargo as well? Clearly there are military applications. Someone should forewarn Marco Rubio!

I don't think ARM UK has control over ARM China anymore. As for RISC-V,it is open source ISA,not proprietary like X86 or ARM. No one owns it,anyone can use it,that is whole point why so many Chinese companies jump into RISC-V bandwagon.
 
I wonder if RISC V is the path forward for a Chinese Intel/AMD competitor. That would be pretty cool.

That seems the trend. At the moment,the vast majority of RISC-V processors on the market are from Chinese companies. China put a lot of resources on developing RISC-V ecosystem
 
RISC-V is a very interesting case of a technology developed at a public US university (UC Berkeley, which means with US tax dollars), which has one of the most permissive licensing models available (you can make proprietary extensions to the architecture and not release them to the community), and there are no license fees.


I'm always amazed that the US Congress does not employ expert advisors to guide them on what is a threat that can be contained and what isn't. The availability of the RISC-V specifications, which are being constantly enhanced, and associated worldwide IP, is probably much more of a security threat than restricting any given generation of production chips, like has recently been done with Nvidia's GPUs. The Chinese military now has access to Chinese-developed GPUs, which may not be leading products for commercial sales, but it looks like they could easily be good enough for military purposes.

https://www.nextplatform.com/2022/08/25/china-launches-the-inevitable-indigenous-gpu/

It looks like limiting product sales to China just creates a lucrative captive market for Chinese chip companies to invest when they aren't really competitive. RISC-V in the wild may be more of a threat, and seems to help negate the US government's Chinese isolation policy. It seems like that policy is hurting US companies more than it is constraining the Chinese military.
 
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I don't think ARM UK has control over ARM China anymore. As for RISC-V,it is open source ISA,not proprietary like X86 or ARM. No one owns it,anyone can use it,that is whole point why so many Chinese companies jump into RISC-V bandwagon.

I remember AMD did an x86 JDA/LTA with a China company a few years back? Same with IBM for the PowerPC architecture? I think both failed business-wise but now it would be a major political issue? Even if there was an IP embargo today it would be really hard to enforce when the two countries aren't on speaking terms.
 
I remember AMD did an x86 JDA/LTA with a China company a few years back? Same with IBM for the PowerPC architecture? I think both failed business-wise but now it would be a major political issue?

That company is Hygon,they just got a big IPO on Shanghai stock market last month

 
I have been through CIFUS, it is no laughing matter. The problem is that OpenFive, formerly Open-Silicon, is really "based" in India not the US. That is where all of the precious IP is, in India. Another misinformed politician. CIFUS knows this of course but Marco has a personal agenda or he didn't do his homework. Either way he does not get my support, ever.
Same as US company purchasing another US company needs chinese regulatory approvals?

They needed that approval from beginning and question here is more about whether this decision was justified... from my understanding.
 
I have been through CIFUS, it is no laughing matter. The problem is that OpenFive, formerly Open-Silicon, is really "based" in India not the US. That is where all of the precious IP is, in India. Another misinformed politician. CIFUS knows this of course but Marco has a personal agenda or he didn't do his homework. Either way he does not get my support, ever.
The US banned EDA software that work with finfet processes from exporting to China, correct? These companies are shipping finfet chips to China that required US EDA software to produce, correct? Perhaps Alphawave and OpenFive should not be allowed to use US based EDA tools. This is also consistent with what they are doing with the fabrication equipment.

Now that you bring it up your political views... Marco does get my support.
 
The US banned EDA software that work with finfet processes from exporting to China, correct? These companies are shipping finfet chips to China that required US EDA software to produce, correct? Perhaps Alphawave and OpenFive should not be allowed to use US based EDA tools. This is also consistent with what they are doing with the fabrication equipment.

Now that you bring it up your political views... Marco does get my support.
BTW: Alphawave now is now headquartered in the UK (I guess they thought that would help their IPO price), the same location that banned Pulsic from being sold to China on Monday. Take action, England!
 
BTW: Alphawave now is now headquartered in the UK (I guess they thought that would help their IPO price), the same location that banned Pulsic from being sold to China on Monday. Take action, England!
Another thing, are you sure that Alphawave's interleaving ADCs and DSPs within their SerDes was done in India? I don't think so.
 
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