Not a fan of how the headlines about this makes it sound like they’re buying intel designed chips rather than Apple Silicon chips fabbed by intel. Apple’s always aimed to have more than one supplier for components, and it used to use others like Samsung for SoCs. It’s only after TSMC pulled ahead of everyone else when they were first to adopt EUV lithography that TSMC became the sole supplier Apple Silicon. It’ll be better for everyone if they can spread that out again.
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Apple Could Soon Be Buying iPhone and Mac Chips From Old Frenemy Intel
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anshuvorty
macrumors 68040
Um...what??!?! You how hard it is to make a fab??!?! Almost has hard as making your own data center!!! And Apple tried and failed at making their own servers, the XServe product was a complete disaster. If Apple can't even make their own servers, how can they make their own data center and extending that to the fabs...
Even if Apple were to start now, it wouldn't be until at least the mid 2030s until that fab is built and who knows what expertise it will have....and this industry is a complete financial sinkhole before it starts making a profit...you gotta sink a hole bunch of cash into it just to build 1 fab...
anshuvorty
macrumors 68040
Umm....I don't think so...at least with regards to their SoCs?!??! I think they were forced to diversify their SoCs to Intel because of this AI crunch....if AI never came around, Apple would be sitting idle letting TSMC manufacture their SoCs for their devices until the end of time, or until China got serious about invading Taiwan...
Quicksilver867
macrumors 6502
BarrettF77
macrumors 65816
If they go back to intel I’ll be looking elsewhere. Intel has proven time and again they are making junk.
It’s still absolutely deranged that all these companies are prioritizing the AI server market. The consumer market they’re turning their backs on is concrete and profitable. The AI server market is one of the most unprofitable large-scale enterprises ever to have existed. It doesn’t even have profitability in its sights.
jz0309
macrumors P6
Nah, Intel knew at least a year in advance what was coming, obviously they didn't talk about it and then they were also in denial and continued in their "strategy" of feeling "invincible"...
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FoxyKaye
macrumors 68000
There is also the consideration that China may want to "take back" Taiwan in the next few years, and TSMC would suddenly become property of the CCP.
"ntel also makes 18A chips built on a 1.8nm node" I thought the next Apple chips will be 2 nm? There are chips under 2 nm already?
CWallace
macrumors G5
For those calling for Apple to build their own chip fabs, they are incredibly complex and expensive and those on bleeding edge processes are even more so. Apple has no core competency in fabricating semiconductors and trying to buy that experience on the open market raises the price even more - presuming they even can, since I expect TSMC is not going to be interested in helping Apple move business away from them.
As for Intel, their own skill (or lack thereof) in designing semiconductors should be mostly irrelevant, since they will be fabricating Apple's semiconductor designs. All that really matters is do they have a reliable fabrication process that can scale to the levels Apple requires.
As for Intel, their own skill (or lack thereof) in designing semiconductors should be mostly irrelevant, since they will be fabricating Apple's semiconductor designs. All that really matters is do they have a reliable fabrication process that can scale to the levels Apple requires.
Again emotions overruling common sense. Intel lost because they fell behind. If they get in the lead again, what is the problem? The people that lead Intel's downfall are no longer calling the shots or they learned their lesson.
But go ahead and keep your friends happy by not having your own opinion based on comments sense.
Ted_Appleseed
macrumors regular
BSDnostalgia
macrumors 6502
"Junk" in what sense? It is a large company. Many products have been and still are successful. The main problem the company has had is that starting with Otellini, Intel management started believing what Wall Street told them that nothing but this quarter's x86 sales mattered. And therefore, everything had to be x86. e.g. the decision to roll out Atom and get out of ARM. It is a difficult trap for large companies to avoid.
A chip fab costs $20B-30B to construct. When TSMC and Intel planned theirs in AZ, they phased it so that they could handle process improvements sequentially. That's how Intel has Fab 52 and 62, whereas TSMC will eventually have SIX fabs there.
Plus you have to do deal with the difficulty of bringing trained employees onboard. TSMC was hoping for more candidates from ASU, UofA, and California, but had to import many from Taiwan to get the first fab up to speed. Hopefully that improves.
Plus you have to do deal with the difficulty of bringing trained employees onboard. TSMC was hoping for more candidates from ASU, UofA, and California, but had to import many from Taiwan to get the first fab up to speed. Hopefully that improves.
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Still not as good as TSMC. I ve read that they are still inferior
chars1ub0w
macrumors 6502a
Apple's genius move was to design their own chips but do no manufacturing. Apple makes nothing. Outsources to mega-assembly factories run by Foxconn, Pegatron, Tata (Wistron). Outsources all chip making to TSMC. Buys memory chips from Samsung, SK Hynix. Buys SSDs from a variety of sources. Buy camera sensors etc. from Sony. Squeeze suppliers for every penny, playing them off each other when possible. Labor problems, long hours, child labor and suicides are not Apple's problems. This model is Tim Cook's legacy and requires friction-free globalization to work profitably.
But it's now a very different world. Cook cannot manage this mess. Good time to retire!
But it's now a very different world. Cook cannot manage this mess. Good time to retire!
- Trump recalled an early phone call from Cook: “I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to ‘kiss my ass.’”
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ThailandToo
macrumors 65816
The nm rating is meaningless in todays lexicon. It's just marketing terms and has been for years. You can only compare the node size within the same manufacturer. For example, Intel's 10nm process was much more similar to TSMC's 7nm process in capability despite it "sounding" worse. I'm not sure how these new nodes stack up, but it won't work to just compare the nm size they call it.
It was the worst kept secret that Apple was going to switch to its own designs. I doubt Intel was caught completely off guard. They surely noticed that Apple wasn’t placing orders for the baseline chips that went into the Air and iMac (2 of the first to switch).
CWallace
macrumors G5
In Intel's lexicon, 18A stands for 18 angstroms, which translates to 1.8 nanometers. So you can effectively consider both Intel's 18A and TSMC's N2 to be "2 nm". And process size alone does not determine the effectiveness of a process and the semiconductors fabricated on it. Per a Tom's Hardware article a year ago, 18A might allow faster transistors, but N2 allowed greater transistor density. N2 is also likely to be more reliable and have higher initial yields.
The cost to build a state of the art semiconductor fab is around $20+ billion (and takes years to build). Which then needs to run 24 hours a day, every day of the year. And then, of course, it needs to have a large workforce to run it, guessing around a few thousand employees (drawing a salary and benefits).
I doubt if it would make financial sense for Apple to go down that path.
sw1tcher
macrumors 604
Is this what you wanted to see, JPack?
Apple, Intel Have Reached Preliminary Chip-Making Agreement
The iPhone maker and U.S. silicon giant will work together on chips for Apple devices. The Trump administration pushed for the deal.www.wsj.com
Apple and Intel have reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to manufacture some of the chips that power Apple devices, according to people familiar with the matter.
Intensive talks between the two companies have been ongoing for more than a year, and they hammered out a formal deal in recent months, these people said. Bloomberg News previously reported the talks.
😂
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Michael Scrip
macrumors G3
