Apple May Break a 10-Year Chip Strategy

[JPack]

You do realize that Samsung has their own foundry services, right? They operate the world’s
second largest foundry service. That's why they don't (at the moment) use Intel's. But that's expected to change in the future.

From August 2025: https://www.businesspost.co.kr/BP?command=article_view&num=409163

Lee Jae-yong As the chairman of Samsung Electronics visited the United States as an economic delegation to the Korea-U.S. summit, it is expected that he is actively pursuing a strategic alliance with Intel to strengthen the Samsung Electronics foundry (semiconductor consignment production) business.

Samsung Electronics is reportedly considering investing in the post-process packaging sector of the foundry, which Intel has relatively strong strengths, and is using Intel's packaging production line in the United States. Samsung is also reportedly considering how to use Intel's semiconductor glass substrate technology.

Samsung Electronics has been considering additional U.S. investments in $37bn to build a foundry plant in Taylor, Texas, and has been working with Intel to drive investment in packaging production lines.


Have you already forgotten about Microsoft and Amazon? I told you about them using Intel's foundry services a week back.

Intel also makes SoCs for Ericsson's 5G infrastructure equipment using Intel's 18A process.

MediaTek is another customer of Intel's.

Things don't change overnight. It will take time, but Intel is fixing the mess their foundry service was in.

I'm referring to leading edge chips, not low-risk chips sent to Intel fabs by Microsoft and Amazon in order to please the White House.

In a situation with free will, Apple or Nvidia would not choose Intel or Samsung as fab partners.

 

[svish]

Intel chips should happen. Apple will like to have multiple manufacturers/suppliers for the chip. Still for the foreseeable future, a majority of chips will most likely be made by TSMC.

 

[justanotherdave]

Early tests of new Intel processors shows they’ve made a big jump in performance/efficiency. Still can’t match Apple M-Series, but it’s hard to quantify how much of that is the process (TSMC vs Intel) and how much is architecture (Apple vs x86).

Bad news for Qualcomm and ARM Windows laptops, though.

If you can get a Windows x86 laptop with competitive performance/battery life to a Windows ARM laptop, then why would anyone buy the ARM version with all the software incompatibilities?

 

[sw1tcher]

I'm referring to leading edge chips, not low-risk chips sent to Intel fabs by Microsoft and Amazon in order to please the White House.

Intel's 18A node is leading edge.

Intel's 18A Node Outperforms TSMC N2 and Samsung SF2 in 2 nm Performance Class

Intel's 18A node isn't all about yields and density (which are still very important factors) but also performance. According to Taiwanese media 3C News, citing TechInsights research and calculations, the new leader of node performance is Intel 18A. On a custom scale used by TechInsights, Intel...

www.techpowerup.com

Intel's 18A node isn't all about yields and density but also performance. According to Taiwanese media 3C News, citing TechInsights research and calculations, the new leader of node performance is Intel 18A. On a custom scale used by TechInsights, Intel 18A gets a 2.53 score, while the performance score of TSMC N2 is 2.27, and the performance score of Samsung SF2 is 2.19. This is all among two nm-class nodes, where Intel leads the category

Intel's 18A production starts before TSMC’s competing N2 tech — here's how the two process nodes compare

Production starts at Fab 52.

www.tomshardware.com

The 18A production node itself is designed to prove that Intel can not only create a compelling CPU architecture but also manufacture it internally on a technology node competitive with TSMC's best offerings. The node is also the first 1.8 nm-class (or, as Intel brands it, 2 nm-class) process to enter high-volume production anywhere in the world, preceding TSMC's N2 by weeks or even months.


Stop living in the last decade. Intel has.

 

[Sputman99]

To be honest the real reason is probably instability and threats to and in chip producing countries - which is sad that only low end can be produced here - this might also account for Apple producing lower end MacBooks with A chips instead of M - it’s a smart strategy to ensure supplies for the company

 

[JPack]

Intel's 18A node is leading edge.

Intel's 18A Node Outperforms TSMC N2 and Samsung SF2 in 2 nm Performance Class

Intel's 18A node isn't all about yields and density (which are still very important factors) but also performance. According to Taiwanese media 3C News, citing TechInsights research and calculations, the new leader of node performance is Intel 18A. On a custom scale used by TechInsights, Intel...

www.techpowerup.com

Intel's 18A node isn't all about yields and density but also performance. According to Taiwanese media 3C News, citing TechInsights research and calculations, the new leader of node performance is Intel 18A. On a custom scale used by TechInsights, Intel 18A gets a 2.53 score, while the performance score of TSMC N2 is 2.27, and the performance score of Samsung SF2 is 2.19. This is all among two nm-class nodes, where Intel leads the category

Intel's 18A production starts before TSMC’s competing N2 tech — here's how the two process nodes compare

Production starts at Fab 52.

www.tomshardware.com

The 18A production node itself is designed to prove that Intel can not only create a compelling CPU architecture but also manufacture it internally on a technology node competitive with TSMC's best offerings. The node is also the first 1.8 nm-class (or, as Intel brands it, 2 nm-class) process to enter high-volume production anywhere in the world, preceding TSMC's N2 by weeks or even months.


Stop living in the last decade. Intel has.

Actions speak louder than words. Where are the Apple, Nvidia, or Qualcomm chips fabbed with 18A?

Do you think those companies rely on TechInsights to provide them info about Intel’s processes? Or maybe they’ve already seen plenty more data about it than we know publicly?

 

[yabeweb]

Not gonna buy these. Intel Macs were the worst. Many probably don’t remember it but they were running hot af and battery life was ****

Yeah because Motorola and IBM were great..... PowerBook G5!!!!!
Intel back when they switched was AMAZING.
I remember my first mini Intel going cycles previews G4 Macs.

 

[The_Gream]

Oh yes, the tariffs. We’ve seen how it has worked.
No western power will endanger their commercial relationship (and risk retaliation in rare earth export from China) to save Taiwan.

Pretty sure the US has defense treaties with Taiwan, not sure how involved they are though.

China is just sword rattling, like what most ‘major’ powers do any more. They might do something every once in a while (Russia is sort of an outlier), but for the most part they just puff up their chest and act all tough.

 

[Zubba]

Pretty sure the US has defense treaties with Taiwan, not sure how involved they are though.

China is just sword rattling, like what most ‘major’ powers do any more. They might do something every once in a while (Russia is sort of an outlier), but for the most part they just puff up their chest and act all tough.

The U.S. has never had direct defense treaties with Taiwan; the policy has always been strategic ambiguity. Some administrations have been more overt than others one way or another, but fundamentally the policy of ambiguity has never changed. The mere threat the U.S. *might* get involved has been enough.

 

[Zubba]

Oh yes, the tariffs. We’ve seen how it has worked.
No western power will endanger their commercial relationship (and risk retaliation in rare earth export from China) to save Taiwan.

This is just entirely, and completely false. The only thing preventing a Chinese takeover of Taiwan is the threat of a western (American) response, and yes the U.S. would respond in some way; most security scholars believe via a blockade rather than any sort of direct attack.

 

[The_Gream]

The U.S. has never had direct defense treaties with Taiwan; the policy has always been strategic ambiguity. Some administrations have been more overt than others one way or another, but fundamentally the policy of ambiguity has never changed. The mere threat the U.S. *might* get involved has been enough.

Thanks. Like i said, i thought they had treaties, but was sure how involved they were.
What I was probably thinking was the military equipment that we sell to Taiwan.
Maybe it’s some of the other countries is that area that have defense pacts.
I know if the USA steps in, Australia I believe has made commitments about joining, Korea would most likely step in, and Japan would if their constitution gets changed to allow it.

 

[Ja50n]

They absolutely should. They have multiple suppliers for screens, which allows them to set a very high standard and drop the worst performer. Being fully reliant on TSMC pushes pricing and quality out of Apple’s control.

 

[vantelimus]

I wish this A.I. craze would go on and settle down. Or at least become more efficient. Why do these servers require so much silicon and ram? Can we not find a way to make more powerful, simple, efficient models that run well on current hardware instead of wrecking the market? This all seems really silly.

It depends on what you are doing. It takes many orders of magnitude more computing power to build models than to run them. For example, building an LLM can require thousands of GPUs operating for weeks to months. It can take on the order of 10^26 floating-point operations (FLOPS)–that's 100 septillion instructions. On the other hand, to use the resulting model to respond to a single request may require only one GPU operating for a few seconds executing only a few billion or trillion FLOPS. So... on the order of a quadrillion times more compute power to build than to run.

The disparity gets worse when you consider power. Running an LLM on your phone or Mac requires only ambient cooling or a small fan. (Macs especially are amazingly power efficient compared to NVIDIA GPUs). Those data centers housing the multiple thousands of GPUs require extensive cooling systems, which require a lot of energy to run on top of the power running the GPUs.

 

[xaverine]

Intel and Samsung both design and manufacture their own chips, making them direct competitors to Apple.
If I were Apple, I wouldn’t trust them with my chip design, which took years to perfect.

 

[shplock]

It's gonna be Intel and it'll be the base model chips. Apple will pay for some loss in power efficiency but will get the threat of tariffs off their back.

No they won't as nobody can trust Trump or Vance or the right wing because as soon as they get what they want they NEVER deliver their end of the deal.

Tim Cook got on his knees for Donald for nothing!

This won't end well for Trump or America or Apple!

 

[shplock]

Not gonna buy these. Intel Macs were the worst. Many probably don’t remember it but they were running hot af and battery life was ****

This is what happens when Tim Cook gets on his knees for dear Donald!

This won't end well for Trump, Apple or the US.

 

[shplock]

When its time for the bulk of users to update from M1 they will have great years.

No they won't, this is all to please dear leader Donald and that never ends well. I remember Intel Macs and they were TERRIBLE.

Smooth moves Tim.

 

[shplock]

Make Apple Intel Again.

Until they come out & we get to know how they perform, I don't want to own any Apple device with Intel Inside.

I can tell you...they will perform BADLY...all this to make Donald happy!

 

[shplock]

This is because the AI boom has led to TSMC running at 100% capacity for years now. There is no end in sight. Making chips for a Apple Watch or Mac Mini can't be more profitable than Nvidia selling chips for $50k each. Therefore, Nvidia is buying up all available TSMC wafers. Nvidia is set to become TSMC's biggest customer this year. Some say they already surpassed Apple last year.

So Apple has no choice but to use lower end nodes from Intel. It'll be a worse product than TSMC for sure. But Apple has no choice because of the AI boom.

The A.I 'boom' is because of tech oligarchs like Musk and co who are that dumb and evil they think A.I will succeed(won't) and in the process they are using up all the water, using so much energy, pushing up prices and making a right pig's ear of it!

 

[shplock]

Apple is not going back to the Intel Mac

Yes they are.

 

[shplock]

I wish this A.I. craze would go on and settle down. Or at least become more efficient. Why do these servers require so much silicon and ram? Can we not find a way to make more powerful, simple, efficient models that run well on current hardware instead of wrecking the market? This all seems really silly.

The answer is simple...The idiots behind this are idiots. Musk and co are not smart and are evil,
A.I is not true A.I and never will be, right now we have a situation where A.I is basically LLMs and they are running out of human data to use so they are using A.I data to train with and that results in A.I becoming a bit senile believe it or not.
The A.I is thus given more data rather than quality data and as such more data means more power needed so higher energy costs and also more water to cool the servers down. Also it results in more powerful systems needed to deal with the influx of more data.
All this will not end well as A.I does not have a monetary value behind it, A.I agents are not making money and are very hard to make money from.
A.I is never going to be true A.I but a facsimile that thinks it is real and simply takes input from humans such as Grok that calls itself MechaHitler due to Elon telling it to be hardcore reich wing.

 

[shplock]

I want to see Apple have another "One More Thing" moment where they announce that they are building more of this stuff in-house using highly-efficient automated mini-factories.

Imagine walking into an Apple Store, ordering a custom-configured iPhone and having it assembled by robots for you on the spot?

That sounds cool but will not happen as Tim Cook is not that visionary and he is allergic to opening the sorts of money needed to do these things.
He also is lousy at products, sorry Macrumors but he is.

Theonly products he released that are down to him 100% are Apple Vision (EPIC FAIL), Apple credit card only available in US and not exactly WOW(EPIC FAIL), Apple Cash only available in the US and not exactly WOW(EPIC FAIL). He tried to do an EV - the Apple car but that failed big time.
He spent 10 years and $10 billion for nothing all because he has no clue but a massive ego.

If he wanted to spend $10 b billion how about use that to build homes for the poor? Build more renewable energy? Stand UP to trump not get on his knees for him?

Nah thought not!

 

[shplock]

That's happening. So much is happening that isn't in the mainstream news. Just follow a few A.I.-centric podcasts and you'll see it. One called "This Day in AI" by a couple of Australian brothers is fantastic! Another by NVIDIA does deep dives into the work that they are doing, which largely involves open-source (eg. open weight) models.

Lots of work is being done to explore the use of SLM (Small Language Models), combinations of purposeful models, etc.

Yes, it's crazy how the big A.I. labs are focusing on massive data centres, but that's only because they are going after the hungry click-happy consumer market in order to make money from advertising. But so much more is happening in parallel that will come to light this year.

This will not end well as A.I is already becoming as senile as Donald is!

Also A.I is beginning to talk about religion, science and HUMANS as being dumb, stupid and COOKED !

This is THEM talking to EACH OTHER NOT WE HUMANS!

This is Terminator style vibes!

 

[shplock]

People need to look up Intel Panther Lake (based on latest 18A fab process node) and realize this isn’t 2021 anymore where Intel had been stuck on 14nm for 7 years while TSMC had moved into 5nm process. Intel’s latest process node is competitive with TSMC 3nm used in Apple chips today, and is no longer years behind it.

Sure, TSMC may still be a bit better than Intel, but they’re charging an arm and a leg for it. Apple is smart to diversify suppliers.

Intel is STILL years behind TSMC
Intel is bowing down to Donald and is part owned by Donald who illegally took part ownership and that means FAILURE as ALL business uses owned or part owned by him FAILED!
Apple is ONLY doing this to make Donald happy to get rid of tariffs that he will not end as he makes too much cash from this that HE puts into HIS bank account in Qatar!

Epic fail from time to time Cook.

 

[shplock]

Total BS. My Intel MacBook Pro (2015) does not run hot af, and I get over 7 hours of battery life (yes, Apple replaced the battery under a recall). My 2019 MacBook Pro does not run hot af either, and it is on 8 hours a day. This person is not old enough to remember the PowerPC Macs, and the Intel Macs were far superior with longer battery life than PowerPC, and they ran cooler than PowerPC Macs. If this person actually read the article, they would know that Intel is a chip fabricator and they would be making Apple's A-chips for the iPhone, not using x86 chips in Macs. Maybe this guy should look at the 4 lb. heat sink in a Mac Studio to keep the Ultra chip cool. Or look at the Liquid Cooled Power Mac G5 if he thought Intel Macs ran hot.

Total BS...my Intel Macbook was HOT AF and CRAPIER than Donald's diaper (he literally pooped himself in a meeting...again).
Intel were OK during PowerPC days but then went downhill and is still there.
If you read the article you would know that Intel's fab process is WORSE than TSMC and will result in WORSE Macs not better ones.
Have a nice day.