Trump Blocks China-Backed Takeover of US Chip Maker 'Lattice Semi' (cnn.com) 151
MountainLogic shares a report from CNN: President Trump has stopped the takeover of an American chip maker by a private equity firm with ties to China. The deal, which would have seen China-backed Canyon Bridge Capital Partners acquire Lattice Semiconductors, was blocked over national security concerns. "Today, consistent with the administration's commitment to take all actions necessary to ensure the protection of U.S. national security, the president issued an order prohibiting the acquisition," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement Wednesday. The national security risk included "the potential transfer of intellectual property" to the Chinese-backed company and the "Chinese government's role in supporting this transaction," according to Mnuchin's statement. Those are sensitive matters: the Trump administration launched an investigation last month into whether China is unfairly getting hold of American technology and intellectual property. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which reviews deals that could result in a foreign entity taking control of an American company, had previously recommended halting the deal. Lattice CEO Darin G. Billerbeck called the outcome "disappointing" and called the proposed acquisition "an excellent deal" for Lattice and for "expanding the opportunity to keep jobs in America." According to CNN, Lattice currently employs 300 people in Oregon -- and Canyon Bridge has committed to adding 350 more if the takeover deal went through.
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Some of Lattice FPGA parts have already been reverse engineered by a single German researcher. Makes these FPGA's very desirable to use. The complete toolchain is open-source and works great. I wish Xilinx would take notice and release some more info on their 7 series parts so someone could figure out the bitstream for them.
More info on Project Icestorm here: http://www.clifford.at/icestorm/
Re:The irony of it is (Score:4, Insightful)
It is the fact of the bitstream resistance to de-engineering which protects the IP streams licensed or internally created
As Xilinx sees it, releasing that information is counterproductive
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Re:The irony of it is (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes.
I mean, if you're giving/selling someone a product, on some level they have all the blueprints to make it.
But bitstream security in FPGAs / program security in microcontrollers makes it significantly less likely someone makes a gate-for-gate copy of what you're doing a month after launch. Just by making cloning a little more difficult/inconvenient your market can be protected for a reasonable amount of time.
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Re:The irony of it is (Score:4, Interesting)
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>American culture has been dumbening down young americans for so long
I suppose this proves your point.
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and if you want evidence of this "dumbening" look no further than than the OP's comment!
No surprise to find some casual racism in the same post either. Ignorance and bigotry go hand in hand.
Does Trump do everything? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a special government office dedicated to approving buyouts of US companies that have national security concerns. I don't remember if they fall under the DoD or some other agency but all they do is research potential implications and approve a merger outright or with conditions. Or recommend it not go through.
I doubt the President actually has any say or cares about these things.
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Might be he had to sign off on the ban.
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He might have had to sign off on it, but if he did, it would be almost certainly one of dozens of things he signs every day. Honestly, I seem to recall, under the Obama administration and the Bush administration, when something like this happened, the President was 'credited' with it.
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Not the same thing at all.
Trump is protecting American strategic assets and making America great again by stopping them godless chinks stealing our ideas.
If Obama did it he was interfering in private business which is communism, death panels and mandatory gay marriage for 6-year-olds.
Re: Does Trump do everything? (Score:1, Informative)
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Having been through one of these acquisitions (I work in the Semiconductor industry) the President had nothing to do with it. The FTC was involved and had to approve. Just more Trump bashing by CNN
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Trump is trying to put his name against every good thing that has happened since his presidency, granted, there haven't been many so he's been trying to put his name against every good sounding thing. This means he'll get lambasted for every bad thing as well. Of course Trump doesn't want this (no doubt he'll call it Fake News(TM)) but it'll happen.
Besides this is better than the way Fox News carried on about Obama, they did far worse than this to him and Obama was
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Which is so baffling because Trump never bashes anyone. It's not like he's been a total bullying asshole and a narcissistic paranoid crybaby or anything. What's wrong with the press these days anyway?
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Having been through a CFIUS review, that resulted in a recommendation to reverse the transaction, the president is involved. CFIUS makes a recommendation to the president and the president can than choose to accept or reject the recommendation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Foreign_Investment_in_the_United_States
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Re:Does Trump do everything? (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
""Today, consistent with the administration's commitment to take all actions necessary to ensure the protection of U.S. national security, the president issued an order prohibiting the acquisition," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement Wednesday."
Maybe he was told to do it, but as a statement of fact he issued the order and had presumably could have declined to.
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From TFA:
""Today, consistent with the administration's commitment to take all actions necessary to ensure the protection of U.S. national security, the president issued an order prohibiting the acquisition," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement Wednesday."
Maybe he was told to do it, but as a statement of fact he issued the order and had presumably could have declined to.
I mean, the president can issue an order for the sun to immediately fuse all of its hydrogen into helium and become a Red Giant, but the laws of physics are not beholden to that order. What people are wanting to know is if this order has any teeth or if it's just willing the universe to bend to his will so he can in a few billion years claim credit for the Sun doing what it was always going to do anyway.
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That's a bit silly. Naturally, he can't boss the laws of physics around, but he can certainly fire people at the FTC if they ignore his order and approve this deal.
Thanks Obama (Score:2, Funny)
Does Trump do everything?
Yeah, I mean blaming a president for things he wasn't involved in is a totally new and disturbing trend started by this election.
Thanks Obama.
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CNN is obsessed with Trump. Everything is about him.
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CNN is obsessed with Trump. Everything is about him.
Actually, their audience is so obsessed, and CNN just is following them. If the Left just "moved on" CNN would find something else to obsess over, like delivering real news as they once had, rather than trying to out-MSNBC MSNBC.
Good news for China (Score:1)
Now China can ignore Lattices patents /IP because that is the justification behind patents.
Unless it was a secret patent that included backdoors with admin/admin coded.
China did not need to purchase Lattice, and it would be a bad deal if US gov did a Leveno or Kaspersky post purchase. OK, now they willo have to produce something similar with a different part number. Big deal.
Re:Does Trump do everything? (Score:4, Informative)
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I think the concern is real. This is likely a real problem, and this move to block it is correct.
I am not a Lattice employee, but work in the semiconductor industry. I was surprised to see this article on Lattice, since I did not know they had a buyout bid by a Chinese company. They most certainly do have export restricted IP (alot of companies like them do as you know). I am surprised this was being considered.
Re: Blame it on Trump no matter what (Score:2, Insightful)
"Clinton who did actually win the election"
I didn't know Bill was running.
The people don't elect the president, the States do. There are only 538 votes cast for president, and Trump won most of those.
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Obviously, poster meant "a presidential election", not the last presidential elector election.
And states don't vote (and haven't since the Articles of Confederation) but individual electors, elected in each state, which is why they sometimes vote for someone who DIDN'T win their state despite practice and even state laws to the contrary.
Foxconn (Score:2, Offtopic)
I really doubt he'll do anything because most of the states passing out the government tit are republican states.
I mean, what's the difference.... a Chinese org buying an American company or a Taiwanese(Largest private Chinese employer) building chinese designed parts in America. Hmmmmmm? Oh wait, one requires Americans to build the spy parts... #MAGA!!11zomg
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Citation needed.
IMO, the first government to offer incentives might benefit for a while. But then everyone else tries it and it all just becomes a race to the bottom.
military related manufactured can just copy IP (Score:2)
military related manufactured can just copy IP and the courts can just say that any IP rights lawsuit can't not go to trial. And the DMCA does not apply as well.
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Your post needs clarification.
Do you mean that the Peoples Revolutionary Army (or whoever really controls the bidder) will ignore Lattice's IP rights, or that the US Government can and sometimes does ignore their rights and demand that they produce solely for it, for National Security reasons? Or something else, that I haven't thought of disambiguating your post as?
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for National Security reasons they can just copy IP and or go to court saying that the rules the IP holder has makes it so that or more there is no way to buy it's use.
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So, as to the Foxconn deal, I suppose my bottom lines are this. Did they reasonably protect the environment? Did the state come out okay on the deal over time compared to other companies? Did the people come out okay over time? Were people proud of their work there?
It hasn't been built yet but considering other companies have shuttered and shuffled to keep the sweet, sweet nectar of the TIF districts [wikipedia.org] flowing.... I can't imagine that this would be any different. Get the money and run. The Dell plant in NC is one example of this.
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National Security /thread
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There are competent authorities for national security. They declare the policies, they set up the review and approval procedures and so on. Every country has them. Some other threads already mention them.
Why has the president need to step in?
Which part of the current regulation failed?
And, most importantly, do you WANT him to have this power?
Re:Are you a dictatorship or what? (Score:4, Insightful)
The 'competent authorities' are all part of the executive branch. They report to the President. The 'competent authorities' advise the president, he signs the order.
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There are competent authorities for national security. They declare the policies, they set up the review and approval procedures and so on. Every country has them. Some other threads already mention them.
Why has the president need to step in?
Which part of the current regulation failed?
And, most importantly, do you WANT him to have this power?
Lets put this in perspective,
Trump has shown that he is willing to claim personal credit for things he had little or nothing to do with if he thinks his base will see it as a promise kept. After all, he personally has added 1 million jobs since becoming prez https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/08/24/trumps-claim-that-he-himself-created-1-million-jobs-as-president/?utm_term=.c131d8f4b007
In this case you can rest assured that the "normal competent national security authorities" had (almo
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Federalist #10 is probably the best place to start.
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Are you that ignorant that you're unaware of the distinction between a Democracy and a Republic?
Are you that ignorant that you're unaware that a democracy and a republic are not mutually exclusive concepts?
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They had very narrow definitions of the terms. Just look at any modern dictionary, and you will understand that you are (and they were) wrong.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki... [wiktionary.org]
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki... [wiktionary.org]
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The modern dictionary is correct?
By definition, yes.
I would also say that the definition of democracy or republic didn't really change for centuries. The words existed even before English, going back to ancient Greece.
The modern dictionary gives the modern general consensus of what the words mean.
Language is about being understood by others. If you don't like it you are free to stay in your basement and not talk to anyone.
When you hear people bring up the distinction between a Republic and a Democracy it's because we're rejecting the Counter-Enlightenment political theory; we are promoting an ideal of a limited government as opposed to the dictatorship of the democracy (um proletariat).
There are better ways to achieve that. A good start would be to put a suggestion for a better government forward. Republic and democracies have nothing to do with government size, by the way.
Redefini
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Liberalism is antithetical to socialism.
There are some that want to reclaim the name.
A democracy is not a republic. And the size of republic means the scope and reach of what the government can do. In other words if a government can do whatever it wants if the majority of the people will it then it is a democracy - not a republic,
If the government budget rises to meet an existential threat then the government is not "too big." It's just right.
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Here's a word that has been appropriated : Liberal.
Liberalism is antithetical to socialism.
I agree, and outside the USA, the proper definition of the term remains.
The problem of the USA is that it leans so much to the right of the political spectrum (compared to other western democracies) that a "liberal" is now considered a leftist there.
A democracy is not a republic.
Again, you are wrong. Just look at any dictionary.
And the size of republic means the scope and reach of what the government can do. In other words if a government can do whatever it wants if the majority of the people will it then it is a democracy - not a republic,
Everything is wrong within that statement.
What you are talking about is to have strong legal (often constitutional) protection for the minorities. It can be achieved in republican forms or government (usa, german
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Sometimes "republic" and "democracy" are just words...
Take the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, for example. It's not a republic and it's certainly not democratic.
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Just look at the idiots who through the word fascist all over the place.
Nonetheless, there are clear, well-written, well defined differences between a republic and a democracy. A great introduction to this is Madison #10 (Federalist Papers).
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The left has a hard time understanding that. They bitch and whine about how we need more laws and government, then they bitch about the laws and government when they finally get it pushed through.
Re:Are you a dictatorship or what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you implying that building the wall would be some sort of new law? It is not, the laws on entry to the country already exist, have for a long time, and were created by Congress. 'The wall' is just a means to enforce the law, which is the President's job.
Re:Are you a dictatorship or what? (Score:5, Informative)
You are misinformed.
The USA is both a democracy (or at least claims to be) and a republic.
Any country without a monarch is a republic, by definition.
A political system where the citizens can vote is a democracy. Otherwise it would be a dictatorship.
The USA is a representative democracy and not a direct democracy, like about just any country on earth (even though some have elements of direct democracy such as referendums). But it's still both a democracy and a republic, and there is absolutely nothing mutually exclusive between these two concepts.
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Well they claim to be.
No democracy is perfect. It's a scale from the utopia to North Korea, with the USA somewhere in the middle, but a little bit closer to North Korea than most other western democracies.
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In theory, the difference between a republic and a democracy is there is a framework which constrains which laws can be passed. Making you a democratic republic.
Given how often the US tramples over constitutional rights, I'd say the US stopped being a republic a long time ago.
When you have AGs who decide the constitution doesn't apply within 100 miles of a border, or any number of things (like
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Simple congress enacted a law that lets the President do this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Economic_Powers_Act
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This might surpise you, but the President is the EXECUTIVE branch of the government. Guess what the job of an executive is - managing. And it is utterly wrong to say other presidents didn't do it. For instance, here is Obama trying to block to the sale of a GERMAN chipmaker [nytimes.com] to the Chinese
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Just fuck off you ignorant troll.
Re: Are you a dictatorship or what? (Score:3)
The US isn't a democracy, nor has it ever been. It's why (for example) the people don't elect the President. The States do. Generally, they have a nonbinding poll to request input on how they allocate their votes, but are under no legal obligation to do so.
As for why the President can kill a trade deal, the States delegated authority to the federal government to manage international trade, and congress passed laws using their authority to manage international trade.
As is often the case, congress doesn't
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When you have some spare time, look up the definition of "democracy". Hint: it's not as restrictive as you think and includes the way that the USA is structured.
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"a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives."
Ok.
The representatives serve the people. Senators serve their State (and originally weren't popularly elected). The President serves all States, and is elected by the States.
So, no, not a democracy. It's a representative government, to a degree, but it is not, and never was a democracy. With gerrymandering and lobbying, it's becoming even less of one with time.
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The representatives serve the people. Senators serve their State (and originally weren't popularly elected). The President serves all States, and is elected by the States.
Who they serve or represent doesn't matter. They are all elected by the people. The president is elected by the people, even though it's indirect because of the electoral college. Therefore it's a democracy.
If the people elect a representatives which elect other representatives which finally elect the politicians, it's still a democracy.
So, no, not a democracy. It's a representative government, to a degree, but it is not, and never was a democracy.
It's what we call a representative democracy. Instead of a direct democracy.
With gerrymandering and lobbying, it's becoming even less of one with time.
That I agree.
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Neither the president nor the senators are directly elected by the people. The president is selected by the electoral college. Electors and senators are chosen in whatever manner each state chooses. States choose election today, mostly, but that's not always been so and the US is powerless to control it going forward.
It may seem a subtle distinction, but just because states choose representatives through elections does NOT mean that the US is a democracy, as it is the choice of the states and they can ch
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Neither the president nor the senators are directly elected by the people.
Which isn't a criterion to be a democracy.
The president is selected by the electoral college. Electors and senators are chosen in whatever manner each state chooses. States choose election today, mostly, but that's not always been so and the US is powerless to control it going forward.
It may seem a subtle distinction, but just because states choose representatives through elections does NOT mean that the US is a democracy,
Yes it does means that, as long as states are democratic themselves.
as it is the choice of the states and they can change it at any time.
Which would require the consent of elected representatives of the people of the states.
The US is a representative republic, the representatives are not (all) guaranteed to be chosen by direct election.
The US is a (flawed) democracy AND a republic.
There is no such thing as guaranteed democracy. The people could always vote to switch to a dictatorship. Even if that would be against a constitution, that constitution can be changed to allow the change from a democracy to a dictatorship.
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And oddly, CHina blocks nearly ALL buys of chinese companies from the west. Yet, I doubt that you object to that.
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Why or how can a head of state interrupt a single business transaction?
You forget that POTUS is not merely Head of State (like Bess II in the UK) but Head of Government (like a Prime Minister), as well.
And the USA has never been a democracy, but a republic. Democracy is like France during the Reign Of Terror, the tyranny of temporary majorities or even pluralities over minorities.
And then the President... (Score:2, Insightful)
...called his buddy, "Yeah, it's done. Go ahead and buy it for fifty cents on the dollar. Use the money you made by shorting Boeing."
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...called his buddy, "Yeah, it's done. Go ahead and buy it for fifty cents on the dollar. Use the money you made by shorting Boeing."
Anybody who has shorted boeing in the last year has definitely not made money..
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...called his buddy, "Yeah, it's done. Go ahead and buy it for fifty cents on the dollar. Use the money you made by shorting Boeing."
Anybody who has shorted boeing in the last year has definitely not made money..
I believe the correct time to have shorted Boeing was right before the President said that he was going to cancel the order for Air Force One. Anyone who knew that he was going to announce that could have made money shorting Boeing. He did work out a new deal with AF1 that actually does make sense to the tax payers, but it did cause a dip in Boeing stock.
Too little too late? (Score:4, Informative)
I dunno what the government has to do with this particular deal, but if fears of intellectual property going to another country is the real reason here, isn't this a bit too little too late already?
Not sure if people realize this, but chinese conglomerates have been buying american technology companies for quite a while now. Not only tech too... let's see if some people recognize some of the "american giants" that are now owned by chinese conglomerates:
AMC movie theater chain, Smithfield Foods, Legendary Entertainment Group, Dick Clark Productions, General Electric, The Waldorf-Astoria, whole bunch of Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons Resort, Riot Games, Ingram Micro, International Data Group (IDG of Computerworld/Macworld fame), Motorola (bought by Google, re-sold to Lenovo), Terex Corp... heck, Chicago Stock Exchange might end up sold to a chinese conglomerate. Think about that.
A whole ton of intellectual property already went out of the country. And sure, I'm not against countries trying to keep their intellectual property inside the country... in the past, the US is well known for doing similar business with BRICS countries, taking over a whole ton of businesses and research from those to get a hold of IPs. But it kinda sounds like there's more to that.
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If I were to guess, this is the first major action after a significant policy change. I am going to assume that this will be the first block of many.
As dubious as it is, I can also see how this is a perfectly reasonable action, as this is exactly what China has been doing for years. They overwhelmingly favour their local businesses and shit on foreign businesses. They consider it fair game to commit industrial espionage on foreign companies.
I think the primary reason why no one has tried harder to put a
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"General Electric", really? Since you got that wrong, we can ignore the rest of your stupid list as unsupported tat.
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That's just their appliance unit. You know GE makes more than just refrigerators, right? GE has long been working towards getting out of the consumer products market.
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Property, you keep saying that word.
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On Motorola, who owns the phones (and is responsible for the awful commercials)?
competition (Score:2)
It used to be that the US would simply out-compete other countries when it came to investing in science and technology. Now there's a disconnect between the value the US government sees and the value US investors see.
Why are these companies courting Chinese investors? Even with all the hand wringing over high valuations, US investors don't value (most) US tech companies as highly as investors outside the US. These Chinese investors were willing to pay $1.3 billion for a company US investors have valued at
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No, there is a disconnect between Republican voters and the value of a college education. Admittedly, colleges educations have become overpriced. However, that is not why Republicans reject them. They reject them because they believe science is some sort of dodge and than leadership in science won't make the U.S. a more prosperous place.
Re: competition (Score:3)
Lol, 8 out of 10 PCBs ordered by Raytheon are fabricated and populated in China.
Hey, they even sell refurbished components there: https://www.bunniestudios.com/... [bunniestudios.com]
Now talk about how Lattice merger block protects US from Chinese messing with American missiles
too bad they missed Newegg (Score:2)
North Korea (Score:2)
add to this their take-over of Rare EE mine (Score:2)
Trump needs to block this and more importantly, get REE going in America again. This is easy to do with Tesla and their Model 3. Mo
Re:Quoted (Score:5, Insightful)
I take it you don't work in the semiconductor industry. A lot of companies I've worked for use Lattice for prototyping. And some open source fanatics have reverse engineered their iCE FPGA and can generate reasonable bitstreams for several models.The FPGA world is more than just Xilinx and Altera, I would say Lattice is a third major player that has more market share than all the other minor players combined. (roughly 6% vs 5%)