https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/6125-apple-will-never-use-intel-custom-foundry.html
Looks like someone summarizing all my points well!
Anyone has a question I will be happy to answer, LOL
14 replies (most recent on top)
@J58LeNH-mdt TSMC is pure play foundry and are the leaders now. They win of it is Qualcomm, Intel or mediatek. They don't need to do anything to hurt Intel as Intel has shot itself in the foot at 10nm
Intel 's modem is a loss leader anyway. Apple probably doesn't have to pay for most of it, if at all if my memory serves me correctly. I believe this was the segment that originally companies like Renesis and mtek were bidding on, its only a small fraction of the total modem with apple. Apple is still source Qualcomm and paying for that percentage (albeit at a much lower cost. Apple never really paid that much for Qcoms modem, and I believe got a sweetheart deal on licensing) so that's why for Qualcomm the Apple business isn't really as golden as people (wall street analysts) make it out to be
TSMC could kill Intel modems and any chance of Apple foundry in one move. Just refuse to manufacture xmm7480. This would force Apple to turn back to Qualcomm and the loss of trust in Intel to deliver would stop any chance of an Apple switch.
Tsmc might have felt pricing pressure from Samsung, which has been steadily applying pressure to tsmc elsewhere....cough... Qualcomm
@J58LeNH-xbz TSMC controls who wins and loses now. They own most of the worlds most advance capacity so if you want it they decide the winners and losers. Intel while they still make. Lot of money are the joke of the industry as their arrogance and miss execution have fumbled the golden goose. I am amazed the board hasn't fired most of the senior management, but the fact thy haven't is good news for TSMC and terrible for Intel stock holders and employees
@uvh, companies got screwed after they found out other foundries are sheet. I know a few of them with huge volumns in waiting.
@J58LeNH-niw Tell me why there was a recent price adjustment for wafers at TSMC. If TSMC losses fruity that is big issue on leading mode. Few companies need huge volume and willing to pay for leading age capacity, can you name any with more than a few million units a month?
That said, I just spent $800 on a RAID disk array to ensure my several terabytes of video and photos and music stays nice and safe. Thanks and doing a cloud backup
The issue is that Apple does such a good job supporting older Macs and optimizing the latest OSX, I haven't found a compelling need to upgrade my 3year old mac mini server.
..unlike bloatware Windoze that I only run frma virtualized container now...
@afn. Apple can't use this against TSMC. There is a long line of customers who want to use TSMC's super clean process. They are much better in quality than any competitors.
@J58LeNH-dvl A move is only required if Apple can't move their hardware at current premium pricing. I don't hear often that people pass on a Mac because of price. Also the pricing Intel gives to fruit company is so good and it is easier for them to simply get the best lowest power skews and charge a premium over the other PC makers, still sales and MS continues to grow as total PC shrinks, so no need to change.
At some point if scaled ARM is required to be one up they could flip the switch any time as they have working hardware and fully functional compilers, but no need
How about turning the question around: on the MacBook line how long before apple decides that an ARM processor is better suited in terms of performance and battery life ? That would wipe an entire PC product line off X86.
Apple will use this to negotiate better price at TSMC and stay there.
Remember what matters to Apple is that move from 10 to 7 gives them PPAC improvement, which it does. Intel DR are too restrictive for Apple to turn a quick design so all unless Intel has completely redeveloped their litho and etch solutions no foundry will go there. Anyways TSMC is already yielding while Intel is ....
Good news for Apple. Bad news for Intel. Ha!