4d ago

Non-American computer hardware

I’m looking to avoid American-made goods and American companies as much as possible and this relatively challenging when it comes to computers.

From my research so far it seems very difficult to find computer hardware that isn’t using American company microprocessors. CPUs available to non-industrial uses tend to be AMD, Intel, or recently some Qualcomm — all US companies. Even Raspberry Pi uses a Broadcom chip, and the other up-and-coming ARM chips I’ve researched seem to be American as well.

I’d appreciate any insights in this area, either companies with existing products or up and coming companies to watch. If I had a blind spot in my research and I’m missing something obvious please tell me.

36 comments

AFAIK MediaTek is from Taiwan, but their CPUs often come pre soldered to a small form factor mainboards, like from Via (also Taiwanese)
- I have been looking into mediatek, and your tip about via was a good one. It seems to be the best answer to my question in terms of what exists now.
  However I’m unable to find anything available for retail consumers, they seem to mainly target industrial markets for embedded applications.
  But it’s very close. Part of me wonders if there is a niche market for this in Canada if one could develop this into a product for sale.
  
  mediatek chips are sometimes used in chromebooks. Look there.
  
  That’s not a terrible idea, I bet I could strip the mainboard out and use that.
  This is a really solid idea, thank you.
  
  My brother in law has a Chromebook with a mediatek chip that performs pretty well. It’s rather resource limited though so switching to full blown Linux might not work out all that well. And keeping it stock means you are using googles operating system, a western technology that probaby shouldn’t be trusted at this point.
  
  Indeed but for my use cases of a headless server this might be just fine.
  The problem is that it’s quite expensive because the cost includes of the screen and camera and components i don’t want, but hey it exists and that’s the furthest I’ve got right now.
  
  They used to sell to consumers. Long time ago, I bought a Micro- or Nano-ITX board from Via for a home made DVR-Mini-PC. Maybe they got pushed out the market.
  
  It’s absolutely possible they still exist but I have been unable to find them if so.

36 comments