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STMicroelectronics Shortage
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hans:

--- Quote from: Siwastaja on December 07, 2020, 07:50:25 am ---AMD vs. Intel is a great analogy, really (there was Cyrix and others, as well). Try to understand it. And in the end, both have benefited from it; AMD has reproduced the Intel's interface, and later, Intel has reproduced the AMD's interface (AMD64) when it worked out better.

--- End quote ---

Not at all in comparison with GD32. AMD licenses out AMD64 extensions to Intel, likewise Intel licenses out x86 to AMD and others.

Wikipedia x86, x86-64:

--- Quote ---Nevertheless, of those, only Intel, AMD, VIA Technologies and DM&P Electronics hold x86 architectural licenses, and from these, only the first two are actively producing modern 64-bit designs.
--- End quote ---

--- Quote ---x86-64/AMD64 was solely developed by AMD. AMD holds patents on techniques used in AMD64;[90][91][92] those patents must be licensed from AMD in order to implement AMD64.
--- End quote ---

This is why private processor extensions can be such a crud to deal with.. Software compatibility was usually best on Intel because they had the fastest cores for a long time with the most extensions. The only thing AMD could do is to get a hold of, and implement the same instruction sets:
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/227059-amd-announces-new-293-million-joint-venture-to-build-servers-for-the-chinese-market

--- Quote ---Lisa Su also noted that the new joint venture would rely solely on AMD’s own intellectual property. This raises some significant questions about what, exactly, AMD can license. One of the problems with trying to talk about the x86 patent agreements between Intel and AMD is that what we refer to as “x86” is a collection of dozens of patents filed over decades by both companies. Intel still holds patents on major features like SSE4.x, AVX, and AVX2, while AMD has patents for AMD64.
--- End quote ---

So unless Gigadevice has paid STMicroelectronics a bag of money to use their patents, they might be infringing them.

On the other hand, how much is there to patent about the RTL of a part? And then I mean the programmer facing part; the bits that are in the registers... is that copyrighted? Patented? Do you claim binary or source code compatible? I think that is very debatable as it's mostly 'software'. A bunch of structs and memory address. How much is there infringing about it?

The actual HDL source code is covered by copyright. If Gigadevice would be forced in court to show sources and IF they would show 'stolen' or 'leaked' code from ST, I'm sure they will be in big trouble. But I think that it's far more likely that they have cloned the same functionality in their spare time. If you look closely at many "clone" devices you often see that high design effort features like power saving or mixed-signal (ADC, DAC) are terrible. It is often relatively simple to get something to work, but to perfect and polish it is 80% of the design effort. Likewise it is relatively simple to get a large databus in an MCU working at several tens of MHz, but if it then also must be power efficient such that you can compete on uA/MHz or <1 uA sleep mode, not so much. *This* could be a major part where vendors like ST, Atmel, Microchip, NXP, Silabs, Nordic, etc all have their own special sauce and patents in. And this is also exactly the reason why I'm sincerely looking forward for RISC-V devices specifically from those vendors, because the actual CPU core used can be an ill predictor for actual power efficiency (e.g. look at how much more efficient STM32L4 devices can be compared to STM32L1 or STM32L0), and a little while ago I checked out a RISC-V CPU that looked great.. except it still ran at 1mA/MHz or something.  :wtf:
S. Petrukhin:
I think it is very important for Chinese guys to enter foreign markets and they try to comply with the rules of foreign markets in every possible way. This may be difficult to understand for those, who make rules and are used to dictating them to others, but in the East it is customary to respect the rules when coming to visit. It's just a tradition.

I have no proof, but I believe that they didn't steal the crystal's photomasks, but created their own STM-compatible processor. This is supported by a 1/3 higher clock frequency, for example, this is no copy. And GigaDevice's dataset is much cleaner and more convenient.

European guys need to think, they are doing a good job, they are doing well, but they are a little fat and clumsy. Very well-fed life in Europe with inflated prices, and in America too, separation from the other World. This gap is not always fair and the swing always swings in both directions.
Kjelt:

--- Quote from: S. Petrukhin on December 12, 2020, 12:05:29 am ---European guys need to think, they are doing a good job, they are doing well, but they are a little fat and clumsy. Very well-fed life in Europe with inflated prices, and in America too, separation from the other World. This gap is not always fair and the swing always swings in both directions.
--- End quote ---
Is that why chinese copy the products we invent  :-DD
If you can talk to our government to reduce the cost of living to the cost in China and decrease our average house prices from €300000 to €100000 with return of the previous investment I have no problem with a 50% wage cut.
But actually seeing the prices of STM microcontrollers , the entire st.com infrastructure with free good quality compiler and very cheap almost no profit Nucleo boards and st link programmers etc. Etc. so I don't have a clue wtf you're argument is about.

Can you show me the great GD free compiler, ide, experimenting boards, programmers , oh wait no you can't.
S. Petrukhin:

--- Quote from: Kjelt on December 12, 2020, 08:21:50 am ---
--- Quote from: S. Petrukhin on December 12, 2020, 12:05:29 am ---European guys need to think, they are doing a good job, they are doing well, but they are a little fat and clumsy. Very well-fed life in Europe with inflated prices, and in America too, separation from the other World. This gap is not always fair and the swing always swings in both directions.
--- End quote ---
Is that why chinese copy the products we invent  :-DD
If you can talk to our government to reduce the cost of living to the cost in China and decrease our average house prices from €300000 to €100000 with return of the previous investment I have no problem with a 50% wage cut.
But actually seeing the prices of STM microcontrollers , the entire st.com infrastructure with free good quality compiler and very cheap almost no profit Nucleo boards and st link programmers etc. Etc. so I don't have a clue wtf you're argument is about.

Can you show me the great GD free compiler, ide, experimenting boards, programmers , oh wait no you can't.

--- End quote ---

I don't blame you or justify stealing. It would be better not to lower your standard of living, but to improve it for everyone.

But I am telling you about the danger that is before you (and me to). You become very far from competition - this is the reality.

China is developing very intensively, they will reach European quality after a while, but they will not have a lazy manager who is not very useful, but they pay a lot of money for being able to inflate their cheeks and say the right words. You can just sit there and wait for the Chinese to push you out from everywhere. Don't expect the Chinese to always make low quality, they will learn very quickly.

STM is a good processor, really like it and use it. Yes, it's really not expensive, but remember when there were at least some development tools for STM. And remember Atmel-Studio when it appeared with a great knowledge base and examples. Moreover, very high-quality examples that you could trust and not expect surprises. There is no such reliability in the garbage generated by CubeMX, many programmers do not even understand what is happening there.

You taught the сommunists the market economy. Your western business went East for cheap labor. No one forced you to shoot yourself in the foot.  :)
Kjelt:
Oh yes China will definitely dominate globally in a few decades, it is happening already for years and not even with competing, they just buy companies, harbors, communities and electrical and waterworks.
So no surprise there, if you look at the history of the world this is happening since humans started walking on two feet. The artificial countermeasures for instance the us takes to cut off china from the latest chip manufacturing fabs is just a temporary setback. They now have to proof if they also can do this themselves, we have to wait and see. But wealth in the world is not unlimited, if the west goes poorer so will china have  less export and so on, so it is mutually beneficial to keep relations and wealth in balance.
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