3.2 China - Israel: Innovation highway
The other Silk Road
On the Belt and Road: The Intel Disaster and the future of 4th Industrial revolution
Following Netanyahu’s successful May 2013 China visit, Chinese investment began pouring into Israel (from 2011 an estimated $15 billion). With the current friction between the US and China, it will no doubt increase. President Trump’s administration made little effort to stop this flow despite strong rhetoric regarding the threat of Chinese technology gains.1,2 Huawei established an R&D centre in Israel, and in May 2018, Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, visited and touted plans to invest in their ‘Start-Up Nation’ project. The Israeli state has been trying to achieve this high level of technological trade relations with China—despite American pressure—for the past century.3
Chinese investment in Israeli high-tech firms tripled between 2013 and 2017, reaching U.S. $25 billion. China may overtake the U.S. as the largest source of foreign direct investment. Over 1,000 Israeli start-ups have set up branches in China, while Chinese firms such as Huawei, Legend, and Xiaomi have research centres in Israel.4
“We want to marry our technology with China’s capacity,” said Netanyahu.5 The scope of Chinese investment in Israel covers “pretty much every major disruptive tech sector.” This includes autonomous and electric vehicles in which major Chinese auto manufacturers maintain research and development centres.6
While decrying the threat of Chinese technological hegemony in the Asia Pacific and beyond, Trump’s sanctions and pressure on China apply to everyone except Israel. On the contrary, Israel is moving right in to fill the void. Thus, a new Cold War is born, one that requires technology acquisition to create the Chinese Dragon instead of the old Soviet Bear. All driven by the same financial and geopolitical forces that underpinned the Soviet Cold War.
U.S. pressure has forced Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to turn its back on its biggest customer, halting sales to Huawei... Meanwhile, in Europe, the United States effectively blocked the Dutch company, ASML, from selling its most advanced lithography machine to SMIC. As shockwaves ripple through the semiconductor industry, Israel seemingly emerges unscathed. In fact, “Silicon Wadi” has found itself among the few benefactors of the fallout from Sino-American tech-rivalry.
2018 saw Israel’s semiconductor exports to China rise by 80 percent. Much of this growth has been attributed to Intel’s increasing sales to China from its recently upgraded Israeli plant, which some have argued served as a way around US trade tariffs.
But Gu Wenjun, chief analyst at Shanghai-based semiconductor consultancy, ICWise, suggests that in the face of US export restrictions, Beijing has been looking to Israel to acquire these advanced technologies. Gu told the press that “because of the trade war, China and Israel’s cooperation is closer than it has been before.”7
But what the Israeli state wants most of all is the expansion of its high-end industrial base, so it can make the machines that make the machines.
The ASML machine uses extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light beams…...That in turn makes it possible to create faster and more powerful microprocessors, memory chips and other advanced components, which are critical for consumer electronics and military applications alike.8
Extreme ultraviolet lithography machine. The chip-making machine at the centre of Chinese dual-use concerns9
Transfers of expertise and equipment to China from Taiwan Semi-Conductor (TSMC) concerns the US Department of Defence:
More than 3,000 semiconductor engineers have departed Taiwan for positions at mainland companies, the island’s Business Weekly reports. Analysts at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research say this figure appears to be accurate. That amounts to nearly one-tenth of Taiwan’s roughly 40,000 engineers involved in semiconductor research and development.10
The learning curve for building world-class semiconductor equipment is likely to dramatically steepen due to the application of Artificial Intelligence to the production process, an area in which China has a strong and perhaps leading position. Intellectual property is not an obstacle to chip fabrication. The real problem is that hundreds of different processes are involved, and each one requires extreme precision.
TSMC is the world’s most advanced chip fabricator. Intel Corporation, formally the industry leader, has fallen far behind due to disastrous difficulties with its ‘Big Wafer’ fabrication process.
Intel shares dropped as much as 6% on Friday afternoon after a Bloomberg report that Microsoft plans to design its own chips for its Surface laptops and desktops as well as servers.11
Interestingly, Intel’s design and fabrication processes were centred in Israel and not in the United States in Oregon and Phoenix Arizona. The Israeli press boasted that the world’s leading Intel 10nm process was a purely Israeli affair.12
In 2017 the Jerusalem Post reported Intel’s massive investment in Israel. The headline read: Intel CEO: “We think of ourselves as an Israeli company as much as a US company”.13 One might ask why a major national security industry was now being centred in a country known for its industrial espionage against America, its primary benefactor? And again: why was America filled with Russian GRU and SVU assets with limited to no FBI and CIA counter intelligence oversight.1415
Presently, Intel is essentially ruined as the world’s leading-edge CPU manufacturer, with major ramifications in corporate servers and data centre sectors. The leading CPU producer is now 100 miles from the Chinese mainland, on an island state successive leaders of the Chinese Communist Party have repeatedly rattled sabres over.
Intel spent $20 billion on a "Big Wafer/Monolithic Die" production process that simply does not work16. Yields are %10-%20 max. This will go down as one of the biggest production disasters in history - assuming you believe that. In fact, it may be the design process was so full of "flaws" (integrated back-doors for Israel) that the design cannot be made "secure". That may be another explanation.
AMD has %90+ yields on their "chiplet" design process. That means they can make "small" silicon die wafers and then weld them together via their patented "infinity cache" system. In the past, it was a system that was too slow - AMD made it work - and it means massively high production yields and they can easily scale up and down with varying designs. Not only does the production process work, it is highly efficient making for cheaper products.
Although, because they have no competition, they are charging a premium to make acquisitions of new company technologies like ARM/RISC based processing designs. Apple, using that ARM system, is their only competition but they are a completely different market - for now.
All that keeps Intel Corp going, aside from the Corona crisis which has increased demand for work from home gadgets, is the fact industry and corporations are welded to their Intel server and data centre chips with proven specialized software.
This is what is keeping the money flowing in. It takes years to prove and certify AMD based specialized software and hardware - and that process is now well under way.
It’s anybody’s guess when production will catch up with demand. But a growing number of industry observers don’t see quick or simple resolution.17
The AMD "Epyc" series of data centre processors thrash Intel to the point of irrelevance. They have twice the processing power (at least) and use a minimum of %30 less power on average...and often much less. This is important in GIANT data centres and server farms where your electrical bill can amount to millions a month in large centres. Also, more heat means more cooling costs and physical space. Imagine, you need to expand your data centre and you can buy AMD that are cheaper, twice as powerful, %30 cheaper to run and have 1/10th (literally) the security problems Intel have. You think that is a big decision to make?
Although Trump rightly praised a decision by TSMC to build a state-of-the-art 5nm facility on US soil,18 rumour has it that Taiwan chip shepherds awaited the outcome of the 2020 election before making concrete moves. The new plant will reportedly produce 20,000 wafers a month, barely half of Apple’s requirements, and not enough to challenge Taiwan’s home-based industry. TSMC 5-nm chips are scheduled for production in 2024 and will be obsolete by the time the purported non-existent plant opens. TSMC Taiwan is already investing in 3-nm chips. Again, what game is afoot?
From an NSA vantage point, a Taiwanese chip fabricator for sensitive military usage is less than secure. Close contact between Taiwan and the mainland creates extensive opportunities for Chinese infiltration of any TSMC facility.
Besides, repeated stern demands from CCP leadership for Taiwan’s return ala Hong Kong, is a prospect that can only lead to war, supposedly. In any case, the 4th Industrial Revolution is 100 miles from China and Intel is out of the game.
About the same time America was negotiating with China via Mr Kissinger, he was also involved in setting up BIRD and BSF: organizations that obtained legal channels for Israel to transfer US technology to wherever, whoever, and whenever Zionists wished to do so. Kissinger was also at the centre of undermining and reducing Taiwan’s defence treaty with America19 as he super-glued Uncle Sam’s resources to Israel.20 Remarkably, critical US high technology components and keys to the 4th Industrial Revolution were simultaneously being developed in Taiwan. In the wake of Intel’s unravelling, these have now become indispensable.21 Current developments, however, indicate that the State department is scrambling to remedy that blunder.22
No one informed the US government about the flaws (Meltdown and Spectre) until they were publicly disclosed at the beginning of January. As a result, the government couldn't assess the national security implications or start defending federal systems during the months that researchers and private companies secretly grappled with the crisis. While Intel notified a group of international private tech firms—including some in China—during this process, the DHS and the US government in general didn’t learn of the situation until it was publicly disclosed at the beginning of January.23
Ongoing security flaws in Intel CPU’s are tied to Israeli CPU design technicians. The current Intel 10nm disaster24 involve “design flaws” that cannot be micro-coded for purposes of circumvention in the short term; thus, rendering Intel’s CPU flagship as essentially worthless. I opine that these “design flaws” are intelligently designed hard ware backdoors that allow covert access to computer systems.25
U.S based cyber security researcher, Christopher Domas, spoke at a DEFCON security conference in 2018.26,27 He elaborated on research into the DEC (Deeply Embedded Core) present in Via’s x86 industrial controller chips, which are built using the same basic design as Intel and AMD’s x86 architecture for processors, and which allows total access to a targeted system. This DEC can be activated by using multiple machine code instruction sets and bypasses present in all hardware and software security. There is concentrated conjecture that this hardwired hardware backdoor was conceived and implemented by Israelis.28
A state-of-the-art Intel- or AMD-powered Windows computer comes with the ability to update its microcode. This microcode is used to translate, internally within the CPU, individual instructions for running software and real time operations. Such operations can be arithmetic, logical, and/or ‘other’. What we discuss is access to the internal cores of microprocessors regardless of guaranteed safeguards. In addition, most integrated circuits used these past twenty-five years or so can be tested as a functional unit with JTAG (Joint Test Action Group) pins. JTAG lines are available on motherboards and offer access to the cores of internally integrated circuits because its function is to test the subsections of all finished products. Unless JTAG lines are physically disconnected from the user, they provide backdoor access. Another convenient integrated circuit is the FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array). This was specifically designed to power-up but without real operational capability. It simply awaits initialization, programming, and the loading of other operational procedures into FPGA on boot-up. In military systems, every effort is made to verify and securely feed proper instructions to FPGA. However, many FPGAs have been unwisely subcontracted to entities outside the borders of American or Allied weapons-manufacturing nations and states, which is asking for trouble.
A case in point is the American-designed, but Chinese-manufactured, ProASIC3 FPGA (or PA3) by Actel (now Microsemi), which is used in devices ranging from automotive to aerospace and US military applications. It apparently has a deliberately built-in backdoor as demonstrated by the University of Cambridge and Quo Vadis Labs in England.29 Some researchers dispute deliberate intent by claiming that no evidence has been brought forth indicating intentional design-in.30 Others claim backdoors are everywhere waiting to be exploited.31
Nonetheless, the delay in current Intel 10nm CPU design is a disaster; meaning security flaws were made known three years ago at the beginning of 2018 by Spectre and Meltdown. Intel’s main competitor, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), suddenly produced their most efficient and fastest processor family called Zen II architecture. These CPU’s have and are moving far ahead of Intel in price, power draw, and performance. Currently, AMD’s Zen III architecture accelerates all such gains with a re-design on a 7nm ‘node’. A Zen IV node on the 5nm process is now due for rollout in mid to late 2021. Intel, meanwhile, claims its 10nm design might be rolled out by mid-2022 — maybe.
Intel now approaches death as a leading-edge CPU manufacturer. Some argue they are too big to fail and have pockets so deep they can spend their way to success by buying every computer manufacturer known to keep their vastly inferior CPU's on line. Corporate data centres and servers continues to keep them alive. It is a giant, hugely profitable market and corporations and large businesses do not ever change equipment or specialised software on a whim during their traditional 5-7-year cycles. When the Spectre and Meltdown bugs hit in late 2017-18, Intel profits soared even as Intel chip performance was dramatically reduced to increase security.
What happened? Did AMD pick up business? No, Intel Corporation tripled profits as data centres rapidly expanded server capacity to take up the slack by using Intel based server racks. But AMD and manufactures at TSMC did not stand still and they continue to maintain dramatic performance and power draw leads, particularly in server market CPU's. This corporate market accounts for over 60% of the market. It’s where the money is and where National Security issues sleep. AMD is beginning to dramatically munch away at Intel’s dominance. This indicates the end of Intel as a CPU manufacturer. All that may be left are specialties such as Self-Driving Vehicles, 5G wireless, and iOT gadgets at least 70% smaller in size.
I just want to say that it will be centred here in Jerusalem, led by Amnon. He will lead Intel’s overall autonomous vehicle efforts, across the whole company, not just here in Israel. We will be folding-in US operations under operations here. The significance is that if you want to see industries of the future, which I think are industries of the present, come to Israel. I’m very glad Intel has already done that.32
The worlds most advanced consumer CPUs (Server, desktop, laptop) are presently built by Taiwan Semi-Conductor (TSMC). This same facility designs and manufactures both AMD and Nvidia graphics-accelerator cards that are vital to the world super computer industry and A.I research and development.
Geopolitical implications are colossal given China’s claims on Taiwan. With a non-exaggerated national security issue, the US government may have no choice but to deny high end manufacturing processes to TSMC and similarly compromised chip makers. Intel’s manufacturing processes and investments are so enormous, although severely hampered,33 that from the national security perspective alone the company cannot be allowed to die a natural death. Hence, a massive infusion of state-of-the-art CPU manufacturing processes may be gifted from the US military industrial complex.
Cadence Design34 and Applied Materials35 are two of the main US world leaders in the machines that make the machines. Nothing moves without them.
This USA National security disaster is likely made worse by Intel’s move of its most advanced design and manufacturing fabrication centres to Israel—a matter that is deftly avoided by the MSM and industry journals. Israeli Russian intelligence assets have long offshored US high-end technology against the advice of one of Intel’s founding fathers, Andy Grove, a Hungarian-Jew who fled Soviet tyranny by escaping to America. In 2004 he forewarned every one of the dangers that offshoring would bring, and ominously said time is working against the US in this matter.36
In November 2003, after the dot-com bubble burst, a massive wave of offshore outsourcing swamped US electronics, IT and software industries. Grove then went on the offense:
A large number of well-trained diligent people are out of work. Job recovery of previous cycles and the absence of recovery in the current cycle suggests that something is basically different. ... Even if that debate started today, time is our enemy. Our actions will later be too little, too late and too depressing — even for me.
Pronouncements coming from Tech industry leaders such as Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, who sees his firm as Israeli,37 are indicative of deeper allegiances at Wall Street and CEO levels. Apparently, media formats, especially the alternative media, are far more interested in Prince Andrew rather than compromised industry heads who may have visited Epstein island with Bill Gates and Bill Clinton.38
Jean-Luc was telling them how Ghislaine’s father, Robert Maxwell, was one of the reasons why Jeffrey Epstein had money. He said Maxwell had been one of Epstein’s early investment clients. I assumed that Maxwell had invested in Epstein, who then used that money to make his own.39
AMD went with ‘Chiplet’ design giving a high yield in functional wafers. Intel Corp went with ‘big wafer’ which many consider a superior design. However, the yield on the Big Wafer process is extremely low and not profitable – the core of Intel’s problems.
https://www.cadence.com/
https://www.appliedmaterials.com/