4 ms·

I ordered an FPGA development board from China last month that unfortunately didn’t make it out of the country before tariffs/end of de minimis set in. So it’s

I ordered an FPGA development board from China last month that unfortunately didn’t make it out of the country before tariffs/end of de minimis set in. So it’s now sitting in a consolidation warehouse overseas while I figure out what to do with it. Paying almost double its value in taxes alone just kills its viability as a hobby, and sourcing it overseas is the only way to get hands on hardware without shelling out $2,000+. There’s a whole cottage industry over there where they harvest semiconductors from junk/e-waste and turn them in to usable products again. I assume that’s where the actual FPGA chip came from.

aziaziazi 1y ago
> junk/e-waste and turn them in to usable products again. Could you expend on this? In my understanding (armchair-youtube-expert), seminconductor "recycling" is basically burning the device and to scrap the metallic parts then using as usual cyanide+boiling chloride (or mercury) to extract gold. Then throw away everything else. The less industrial method involves human dissection of such devices (with pre and post burning) to extract Silver/Cooper
- MSFT_Edging 1y ago
  Not all recycling. Certain valuable chips are saved for other uses. STM chips are popular for that. You'll also see older Spartan FPGAs repurposed.
- bombcar 1y ago
  There's an entire industry in Asia that takes apart computers and boards and industrial equipment, removes the chips, and resells them. Sometimes they even paint part numbers and such on them by hand. It can be a source of fake chips, but also a source of chips that aren't made anymore.
  - reginald78 1y ago
    China seemed to take chips from obsolete motherboards and turn them into boards to allow reuse of old Xeons, at least for awhile there. I can't imagine those chipsets were still being made so I assume that is what was happening. A lot of those old processors were still quite useful but since the motherboard supply had dried up they were cheap e-waste. I can't imagine that kind of recycled product being made here, not least of which because Intel would probably find a way to sue a domestic company out of existence if they even tried.
    - thenthenthen 1y ago
      I am running one right now, ancient 10 core Xeon on a new motherboard, runs as a beast, aircooled (iirc these boards were first designed by russian hackers and appeared on a message board years ago). Anyway, almost everything seems to get recycled/repurposed in China (sd cards, memory chips, styrofoam), heck even if there is no demand but just overstock they find a way to create demand, what do you do with an overstock of ballbearings? Fidget spinners?
- xiaotianhu 1y ago
  Are you serious? China has a large number of lithography machines. Except for some very high-end 3nm chips that cannot yet be produced, other types of chips can all be manufactured. In 2024, China's chip export value reached nearly $95 billion. This certainly couldn’t have been achieved through so-called "recycling."
  - tomhow 1y ago
    Are you serious? Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - aziaziazi 1y ago
    I think you missed my point, I totally agree with what you said and don't think that contradicts my message.
MSFT_Edging 1y ago
I had to delay learning PCB design during Covid because I couldn't source any parts. Now prototypes will cost at least 2x, if not more. These tariffs are essentially shooting US technology development in the foot. Chinese engineers will have the greatest access in the world to manufacturing and components, while engineers in the US who don't already have a large company to bankroll them will just find something else to do. I had some projects in the pipeline that I might not bother with now. It's simply not worth the money. US PCB fabs are probably even worse, they still get a lot made overseas, but now they also hate you because they exist to do large orders for the DoD, not joe schmo democratizing hardware.
- invokestatic 1y ago
  I am exploring whether PCB prototypes can be imported tariff-free under HTSUS 9817.85.01. However getting a tariff broker to figure out how to do this properly might also be expensive.
  - MSFT_Edging 1y ago
    The big pain point for me would be the assembly service. Smaller designs I don't mind putting together by hand, I have a toaster oven and low-temp paste. If I'm designing something that would need 100 units though, that's going to send a design cost from reasonable to out of reach rather quickly.
  - mindslight 1y ago
    This feels like the exact kind of thing Chinese vendors/marketplaces are going to be figuring out at scale, but that still won't stop them from doubling their prices even if they do avoid paying many of the high tariff taxes. Market disruptions are an excuse to raise prices (see the first round of Trump inflation from the completely inappropriate economic response to Covid), and I wouldn't be surprised if the shipped-direct-from-China business drastically grows because of the recent tariff tax changes. Another perverse incentive is that to get items sitting in a US warehouse (eg Amazon), the seller has to pay the high tariffs before they can even start selling them, while also hoping that tariffs aren't lowered before they can sell them all (and the expectation is that Trump is going to have to dial back this idiotic "plan" of his some time). Meanwhile the seller of a direct shipped item has a confirmed sale and cash-in-hand by the time the shipment gets to the border. So I expect the selection of US-stocked items is about to drop dramatically, and the poor economic conditions and abjectly poor leadership is going to leave many people not feeling too bad about (or even gleefully embracing) shopping direct.
derbOac 1y ago
I think what you're referring to is insidious and not getting anywhere near enough attention. There's constant clamoring about increasing STEM engagement and then they go and kill off accessibility of tech. Tech access is important all the way up and down the cost spectrum. The way people — kids as well as adults — get interested in this stuff is by having things to play with and use. You have an idea and want to work on a prototype? Now it's more expensive. Want to build something with your kid to get them interested in hardware? More expensive.
- infecto 1y ago
  Disagree. The way de minimis was being exploited created a market distortion that unfairly favored foreign companies. I get that there are niche cases where it causes real pain, and that sucks but calling it insidious feels like overkill. I support free trade, and in an ideal world we’d have no tariffs at all. But enforcement around imports is hard. You still need some mechanism to regulate goods entering the country, and duty taxes are a practical tool for that. When a U.S. retailer imports goods from China, they pay duties. When Temu ships a nearly identical product directly to U.S. consumers under de minimis, no one pays anything. That’s not a level playing field.
  - macintux 1y ago
    When did “level playing field” become more important than other considerations?
    - infecto 1y ago
      It’s not that a level playing field is more important than every other consideration, it’s that you can’t have a functional or fair market without one. If one group has to follow the rules and bear the costs, while another gets a free pass because of a legal loophole, you're not fostering innovation or accessibility, you're just subsidizing arbitrage. That’s not sustainable, and it warps both pricing and incentives. I’m all for lowering costs and increasing access to STEM tools. But if the policy that does that relies on systematically undercutting domestic importers and eroding trade enforcement, then we should be honest about the tradeoffs. Let’s push for smarter, broader reforms (like targeted STEM subsidies or tariff carve-outs for educational goods) instead of defending a workaround that happened to benefit us temporarily.

aziaziazi 1y ago

> junk/e-waste and turn them in to usable products again. Could you expend on this? In my understanding (armchair-youtube-expert), seminconductor "recycling" is basically burning the device and to scrap the metallic parts then using as usual cyanide+boiling chloride (or mercury) to extract gold. Then throw away everything else. The less industrial method involves human dissection of such devices (with pre and post burning) to extract Silver/Cooper

MSFT_Edging 1y ago
Not all recycling. Certain valuable chips are saved for other uses. STM chips are popular for that. You'll also see older Spartan FPGAs repurposed.
bombcar 1y ago
There's an entire industry in Asia that takes apart computers and boards and industrial equipment, removes the chips, and resells them. Sometimes they even paint part numbers and such on them by hand. It can be a source of fake chips, but also a source of chips that aren't made anymore.
- reginald78 1y ago
  China seemed to take chips from obsolete motherboards and turn them into boards to allow reuse of old Xeons, at least for awhile there. I can't imagine those chipsets were still being made so I assume that is what was happening. A lot of those old processors were still quite useful but since the motherboard supply had dried up they were cheap e-waste. I can't imagine that kind of recycled product being made here, not least of which because Intel would probably find a way to sue a domestic company out of existence if they even tried.
  - thenthenthen 1y ago
    I am running one right now, ancient 10 core Xeon on a new motherboard, runs as a beast, aircooled (iirc these boards were first designed by russian hackers and appeared on a message board years ago). Anyway, almost everything seems to get recycled/repurposed in China (sd cards, memory chips, styrofoam), heck even if there is no demand but just overstock they find a way to create demand, what do you do with an overstock of ballbearings? Fidget spinners?
xiaotianhu 1y ago
Are you serious? China has a large number of lithography machines. Except for some very high-end 3nm chips that cannot yet be produced, other types of chips can all be manufactured. In 2024, China's chip export value reached nearly $95 billion. This certainly couldn’t have been achieved through so-called "recycling."
- tomhow 1y ago
  Are you serious? Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- aziaziazi 1y ago
  I think you missed my point, I totally agree with what you said and don't think that contradicts my message.

MSFT_Edging 1y ago

I had to delay learning PCB design during Covid because I couldn't source any parts. Now prototypes will cost at least 2x, if not more. These tariffs are essentially shooting US technology development in the foot. Chinese engineers will have the greatest access in the world to manufacturing and components, while engineers in the US who don't already have a large company to bankroll them will just find something else to do. I had some projects in the pipeline that I might not bother with now. It's simply not worth the money. US PCB fabs are probably even worse, they still get a lot made overseas, but now they also hate you because they exist to do large orders for the DoD, not joe schmo democratizing hardware.

invokestatic 1y ago
I am exploring whether PCB prototypes can be imported tariff-free under HTSUS 9817.85.01. However getting a tariff broker to figure out how to do this properly might also be expensive.
- MSFT_Edging 1y ago
  The big pain point for me would be the assembly service. Smaller designs I don't mind putting together by hand, I have a toaster oven and low-temp paste. If I'm designing something that would need 100 units though, that's going to send a design cost from reasonable to out of reach rather quickly.
- mindslight 1y ago
  This feels like the exact kind of thing Chinese vendors/marketplaces are going to be figuring out at scale, but that still won't stop them from doubling their prices even if they do avoid paying many of the high tariff taxes. Market disruptions are an excuse to raise prices (see the first round of Trump inflation from the completely inappropriate economic response to Covid), and I wouldn't be surprised if the shipped-direct-from-China business drastically grows because of the recent tariff tax changes. Another perverse incentive is that to get items sitting in a US warehouse (eg Amazon), the seller has to pay the high tariffs before they can even start selling them, while also hoping that tariffs aren't lowered before they can sell them all (and the expectation is that Trump is going to have to dial back this idiotic "plan" of his some time). Meanwhile the seller of a direct shipped item has a confirmed sale and cash-in-hand by the time the shipment gets to the border. So I expect the selection of US-stocked items is about to drop dramatically, and the poor economic conditions and abjectly poor leadership is going to leave many people not feeling too bad about (or even gleefully embracing) shopping direct.

derbOac 1y ago

I think what you're referring to is insidious and not getting anywhere near enough attention. There's constant clamoring about increasing STEM engagement and then they go and kill off accessibility of tech. Tech access is important all the way up and down the cost spectrum. The way people — kids as well as adults — get interested in this stuff is by having things to play with and use. You have an idea and want to work on a prototype? Now it's more expensive. Want to build something with your kid to get them interested in hardware? More expensive.

infecto 1y ago
Disagree. The way de minimis was being exploited created a market distortion that unfairly favored foreign companies. I get that there are niche cases where it causes real pain, and that sucks but calling it insidious feels like overkill. I support free trade, and in an ideal world we’d have no tariffs at all. But enforcement around imports is hard. You still need some mechanism to regulate goods entering the country, and duty taxes are a practical tool for that. When a U.S. retailer imports goods from China, they pay duties. When Temu ships a nearly identical product directly to U.S. consumers under de minimis, no one pays anything. That’s not a level playing field.
- macintux 1y ago
  When did “level playing field” become more important than other considerations?
  - infecto 1y ago
    It’s not that a level playing field is more important than every other consideration, it’s that you can’t have a functional or fair market without one. If one group has to follow the rules and bear the costs, while another gets a free pass because of a legal loophole, you're not fostering innovation or accessibility, you're just subsidizing arbitrage. That’s not sustainable, and it warps both pricing and incentives. I’m all for lowering costs and increasing access to STEM tools. But if the policy that does that relies on systematically undercutting domestic importers and eroding trade enforcement, then we should be honest about the tradeoffs. Let’s push for smarter, broader reforms (like targeted STEM subsidies or tariff carve-outs for educational goods) instead of defending a workaround that happened to benefit us temporarily.