We don't know the motivation behind this - it could be due to things unrelated with the court case; such as a more complex design or more advanced tooling required.
But, of course, it's just extra motivation for Apple to try and find other suppliers. Samsung know Apple can't just switch to someone like TSMC overnight, so they're going to have to take that price increase.
Apple need to sort their supply chain. They're being forced from Samsung, which means any other suppliers will be free to hold them to ransom.
LCDs and CPUs seem the hardest right now. If I were Tim, I'd...
- Buy Sharp and turn it in to a subsidiary. Re-tool, hire new engineers and move forward. Total cost? $5-10 Bn.
- Get people on the boards of Intel and TSMC. Make some strategic investments to keep the close. Intel might be more difficult, but they've indicated some potential willingness to fab non-x86 chips for others. They desperately need a business that grows as the mobile market grows - at the moment, they're shut out of that enormous growth and tied to the failing PC sector.