BonzaiDuck
Lifer
- Jun 30, 2004
- 16,139
- 1,744
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I'm pretty sure some grubby Chinese factory doesn't have the skill and expertise to do knock off i7 cpu's. If they do, someone hire them pronto. Clearly they are geniuses.
The only counterfeiting episode I'm aware of took place back at turn of last decade, with Pentium 2 (266, 300, . . . 400) models. Intel, like any industrialist, wanted "product differentiation" without extra production costs. So they rolled them off the same assembly-line, after building in a feature that would allow disabling operation at a higher speed.
Then somebody in the Philippines figured out how to re-enable the "lesser processor" and make it a "greater one." But it still originated in an Intel factory.
If the Chinese could replicate the production process for a complete Intel chip, figure they've got enough information to create a "third market player" and design their own CPU. The myth that the Chinese are only successful "duplicators" of "Western technology" isn't accurate.
They're only more unscrupulous about patents and intellectual property. And even that is changing.