So they banned Megvii. Who cares?

I just took apart a Megvii camera — I think I know who might.

Hardware rules.

I love hardware. Especially heatsinks. Not really sure why — they’re kind of boring, usually necessarily ugly (all those awful fins!) — but after designing and building one for a consumer product I tell you what, they’re tricky buggers!

I never forget a good, big heatsink.

And thats why, when I saw the news this morning that the US government has banned US companies from selling product or technology to a gaggle of Chinese AI companies — Hikvision, Sensetime, Megvii, more — visions of heatsinks surprisingly worked through the noise that is my stressed out, overcaffeinated brain.

Wait a minute…I have a Megvii camera in my garage! And it has an awesome heatsink!

I wonder whats inside?

This is what all the hubbub’s about?

Hey Andy — why do you have an Megvii camera used for facial recognition by the Chinese government?

Good question. It all began in around ’09, when a bunch of Portuguese…

But that’s neither here nor there — recessions are a bitch.

But see that little sticker next to the Megvii logo? The beautiful purple-hued brain? That’s Comet Labs baby, subsidiary of Legend Star out of Beijing and my former employer. Legend Star, turns out, was the lead Series A investor for Megvii.

‘Bout 8 months ago, Legend Star (rightly, because of CFIUS) decided to stop US investments through Comet. Its never fun to be given a cardboard box and told “get out and stay out,” and in a fit of entitled rage I grabbed the most expensive looking thing — a security camera — from a pile of unused stuff in the corner. Take that, Comet Labs. Take that.

So now you know — in some way, Megvii paid my salary and got me where I am today, working with Micron Technologies and their AI fund.

You know how the hot chicks in high school always fell for the bad boys? After writing that last paragraph, I kind of feel like that right now. Bad boys, why you make me feel so good?

Because I’m an extremophore, thats why. I live for risk, thrive in stressful situations, and love working with bad ass folk who know their stuff and aren’t afraid to go big. That’s startups. That’s Legend Star. That’s Micron.

Wolves hunt together.

Andy — who cares about you? What in the world you got in that camera!

Right. Taking this puppy apart, I learned three quick things:

1. its good Megvii have software valuations, cuz their hardware kind of sucks. Pieces were falling off left and right with only the smallest pull. Weird.
2. Thank God they didn’t use threadlock. I was expecting 2 hours — dismantling the thing took about 5 minutes.
3. Oh, that heatsink.

First thing I saw inside was the camera lens and a big sticker proclaiming “Made in Japan.” Not surprising — we offshored all our optics manufacturing capabilities decades ago. But I’m a Micron guy, and I’m not here lookin’ for some rinky-dink glassware. I want the good stuff. Semiconductors.

Heres the first board:

Image processor and other stuff

VIMICRO — never heard of ’em. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimicro — “It was founded in 1999 when the Chinese government invited a group of Chinese people who had been educated and had established careers in Silicon Valley to return to China to start a company.” Well I’ll be.

SAMSUNG — heard of ’em, and that looks like memory to me. Thanks, Megvii. Thanks a lot.

But this is just image processing components — nothing too wild, and I haven’t yet cracked into that awesome heatsink. But again, cracking into that awesome heatsink was a function of four screws and kind of tapping the heatsink on the table — like an egg, but with screws. Easy.

Inside were two boards, positioned perpendicular to each other in kind of a “T”. The first, the top of the “T” and sunk to the rear of the heatsink, really just had a bunch of peripherals and isn’t worth the bytes to share. Boring.

But the last board was smashed in between the two halves of my great big heat sink egg.

The thing about heat sinks, they’re usually good at extracting heat. And again, this is a big heatsink, so whatever kind of stuff they got going on in these heat sink innards has gotta be working up a sweat.

Here’s the first side, the one without the annoying sticky stuff adhering it to the heat sink (while I love heatsinks, I love thermal interface materials more):

Wireless modem and other stuff.

JORJIN — don’t know ’em (I need to know more people building this stuff). And they dont have a wikipedia page. They’re in Taiwan and build wireless modems. Got it. Yawn.

HYNIX — uhh, yeah thats more memory. Come on now, Megvii! Thats two out of the big three — whats a guy gotta do to sell some DRAM around here?

Still, nothing too crazy and nary a US component as far as the eye can see (well, ignoring that noise about VIMICRO, and maybe I missed one of the passives).

Then I flip the board over:

The holy of holies.

HYNIX — aaaarrrrrgggggg!!!!!

KINGSTON — Hmmm. That’s some American storage there.

And that gorgeous reflective processor in the middle?

NVIDIA — interesting.