Is Huawei Building Its Own DRAM Fab?
From the site tech-news site XDA Developers:
The consumer tech economy needs more DRAM manufacturers, and it needs them more urgently than perhaps at any point in its history. Anyone keeping track of the pricing trends will know that memory prices have climbed into the stratosphere on the back of AI infrastructure's relentless demand, and every consumer device that depends on RAM has traveled from inflated to unaffordable, quarter after quarter, with almost no relief in sight. Which is exactly why a story out of Shenzhen is worth paying attention to, even in its current rumor phase. According to the details circulated by various semiconductor analysts on X, the Chinese government, DRAM maker SwaySure and Chinese tech giant Huawei have partnered to set up a 12-inch memory production plant. If the reports hold up, it could change memory economics for years to come, but not necessarily in the way you'd hope...
SwaySure itself is a known player. The company was registered in Shenzhen in March 2022, is reportedly backed by municipal government, and appears alongside Huawei on the US Commerce Department's Entity List, suggesting Washington has realized the connection between the two entities. Although, that's also where the story becomes a little less straightforward. None of these claims have been independently confirmed, and many of the technical details circulating online trace back to a single X account. Huawei has previously denied operating the wider network of state-backed fabs that analysts have reported. Even the widely quoted figure of 140,000 wafers per month isn't new, and public records indicate SwaySure's production line is already operational. What gives the report weight, then, is the fact that Huawei has spent years building this kind of domestic semiconductor ecosystem through partners that appear to operate independently.
The rationale that analysts on X keep revisiting has little to do with consumer memory. Huawei's Ascend AI accelerators require high-bandwidth memory (HBM), and US export controls have all but cut Chinese entities from procuring HBM from Samsung or SK Hynix... Owning the supply outright solves a problem that purchasing power can't, which is why the DRAM push is read as a bid to secure captive HBM for Huawei's own silicon rather than to flood the market with cheaply manufactured DDR5... The catch, however, is the fact that most of this new and rejuvenated capacity is expected to be absorbed by China's own domestic demand, rather than to relieve the global shortage... This development does not seem to be an isolated incident, given the state of DRAM economics. CXMT, China's largest manufacturer of DRAM, is already running close to 265,000 wafer starts per month as of now as per analyst estimates, and is projected to hit 350,000 by the end of the year, bringing it within the touching distance of Micron's estimated 385,000....
[T]he oligopoly seems to be facing the first credible challenge to its capacity discipline in decades, and it seems to be coming from a country building fabs much faster than the competition could hope to match. Now, whether it tangibly impacts the consumer market economics in the time to come may be a story in its own right in a few years, but for now, for what it's worth, it's a new direction, and much of it feeds optimism.
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Tennis star's socialite wife flies off the handle at posh Nantucket shop that put up 'no influencers' sign inside
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Councillor says 'LGBT extremists' target Christians during Essex Libraries Pride row
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The cafe where everything is homemade named the best in Essex
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Reform councillor says Pride in our libraries motion is 'flawed and misleading'
Many councillors had passionately spoke for and against the motion, including Colchester’s Reform leader Andrew Harding.
Councillor says 'LGBT extremists' target Christians during Essex Libraries Pride row
A council meeting turned heated when a councillor claimed 'practicing Catholics and evangelical Christians' would feel they are entering a "hostile environment" if libraries display Pride flags.
The brutal reality of life AFTER Love Island: Why guaranteed fame is a thing of the past for would-be stars
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Chris Brown returns to the stage for raunchy show in Nashville hours after pleading guilty to attacking music producer in a Mayfair nightclub
The singer, 37, had been facing trial later this year after he hit a former friend twice over the head on the dancefloor at the Tape private members' club in Mayfair in 2023.
Horrific moment man in his 30s is stabbed in front of crowd during afternoon in busy Soho street
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From Golden Balls to golden fields: Green-fingered David Beckham will jet back from Ibiza to find the heatwave's turned his £12million Cotswolds estate into an arid dust bowl
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Three Astronauts Safely Return from Space Station, Landing in Kazakhstan Steppe
"Welcome home!" NASA posted on X.com, sharing footage of a successful "parachute-assisted" landing on a Kazakhstan steppe for the Soyuz MS-28, carrying three astronauts who'd spent 241 days on the International Space Station. (And YouTube has a full two-hour video with NASA's coverage of the landing.)
A NASA web page notes they orbited Earth 3,856 times and traveling more than 102 million miles after docking with the Space Station on November 27. It was the first mission for NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergei Mikaev (and the second mission for Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov). "After routine post-landing medical checks, recovery teams will fly the crew by helicopter to Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Williams then will board a NASA aircraft bound for the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
UK retailer hires undercover detectives in some stores to combat shoplifting
Holland & Barrett has hired undercover detectives in some shops due to shoplifting
UK retailer hires undercover detectives in some stores to combat shoplifting
Holland & Barrett has hired undercover detectives in some shops due to shoplifting
Sydney Sweeney unleashes her inner daredevil as she takes on the world's biggest swing and a nighttime bungee jump in New Zealand with boyfriend Scooter Braun and Noah Centineo
She's a self-confessed adrenaline junkie who loves to test her limits. And Sydney truly pushed herself this weekend as she took part in an action-packed day of thrills.
Basildon woman scared she could 'kill her husband in her sleep'
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How Georgia Harrison finally found happiness: Star lives idyllic family life with partner Jack and their daughter - as her convicted sex offender ex Stephen Bear faces prison AGAIN
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'F*** you and them': Jermaine Jenas hits back at his critics in bizarre pancake video after former BBC star's car-crash Good Morning Britain interview
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Typo-Squatting Scammers Con South Carolina Town Out of $545K
It started with some underground utility work for the South Carolina town of Surfside Beach (population: 4,155). "Public records confirm that a payment of $545,598.30 was issued," according to a local news station — but the CEO of Wildcat Contractors "stated that the account that received the money is a scammer account and that his company has an overdue invoice for underground utility work completed in Surfside Beach."
Yahoo picks up the story:
After the payment issue surfaced, Wildcat said Surfside Beach sent over the email thread containing the payment confirmation. The company told WMBF it noticed multiple red flags in the chain. One involved an email address where "Wildcat" appeared with an extra "i." Another involved documents that the company said included a forged signature taken from a prior notarized document. Wildcat said the money was sent to a spoofing account claiming to be the contractor.
More local reports are unraveling what happened:
According to the Wall Street Journal, the town's finance director said a town employee called Wildcat's project manager on March 13, the day the payment was sent. The project manager referred the caller to [Wildcat CEO] Bowker. The town then called Bowker's mobile phone and left a voicemail about the ACH transfer. Bowker told the Wall Street Journal she does not recall the voicemail but acknowledged she may have missed it.
Now a new report released by a law firm hired by the town to investigate "shows it did make an attempt to verify before sending $545,000 to a fraudulent bank account," according to local news reports:
According to the report, the town sent an email to Wildcat's legitimate email domain on March 13 requesting a callback for verbal verification before sending the payment. Surfside received a response to that email with a phone number, though it remains unclear whether that response came from a real Wildcat employee or from the scammers. The report found that the fake town domain was used in communications between both parties throughout the process, which the law firm overseeing the investigation said was likely created to facilitate the fraud and delay its discovery.
That seems to be the case in a nutshell:
Investigators determined the fraudsters used spoofed and typo-squatted email domains, including surfsidesbeach.org, to impersonate town officials and redirect the payment. The fraudulent domain was created March 9 and was used to help conceal the scheme, according to investigators. Town officials said they are continuing to work with the FBI, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, and their insurance partners to recover the funds.
"The town has also implemented additional security measures to strengthen payment verification procedures and reduce the risk of similar incidents."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.