Apple Shifting A5 Production From Samsung to TSMC?

[Ping Guo]

Asia's entire development was based on copying for the longest time. Once they started evaluating and adding their thoughts to what they were copying they became the masters.

I laugh when USA thinks they are the greatest economy in the world.

When it comes to money Asia OWNs them already for several years.

Without the US military power they would be begging the IMF for assistance.

Hah!! What? These are export economies, without the US and Europe as customers, these guys are toast! Why do you think the Nikkei jumps and dives whenever there's a report on US unemployment or other economic data? What do you think China'a economy is based on, besides a domestic housing bubble?

Not to mention that Japan's economy has been in a recession since the 90s!

The US may be heading down the toilet, but we still lead the world in innovation, just look at the number of international patents registered, and where the world's biggest tech companies are.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

I guess they couldn't find a American co hey?

 

[cmaier]

I guess they couldn't find a American co hey?

There aren't a lot of options for contract fabs in America. Globalfoundries hasn't opened up their upstate NY fab yet, as far as I know. IBM is far too expensive for what the process provides (which is essentially the same as what globalfoundries provides) Most everyone else is in Asia or Europe.

 

[toddybody]

I guess they couldn't find a American co hey?

I wish Apple would support AMERICANS through US production and assembly; those added jobs would be a life saver to our economy...and our exports would be that much better obviously. Their Apple Tax would actually be justifiable at that point.

 

[OllyW]

Their Apple Tax would actually be justifiable at that point.

Apple customers living outside the US might not agree.

 

[Thunderhawks]

Hah!! What? These are export economies, without the US and Europe as customers, these guys are toast! Why do you think the Nikkei jumps and dives whenever there's a report on US unemployment or other economic data? What do you think China'a economy is based on, besides a domestic housing bubble?

Not to mention that Japan's economy has been in a recession since the 90s!

The US may be heading down the toilet, but we still lead the world in innovation, just look at the number of international patents registered, and where the world's biggest tech companies are.

Not really the forums to enable us to discuss this in detail.

First of all this is all about money.
Europe and the US do not have the labor pool and in Europe they don't have space and the freedom of unregulated business to do the kind of piece work
China does. By labor pool I mean a combination of poorly paid workers (poorly is in the eye of the beholder) and space to work in.

If you look at studies by the Cato institute there is already a shortage of low skilled workers now in the US, hence the reliance on illegal immigrants.
(And more coming IMO)

Europe has no mass or raw material, so they have to do things with high tech, efficiencies and innovation and export.

As far as the economy is concerned there are already plenty of consumers in China (look at the cell phone market) and that market will be growing.

The US leading companies are forced to do their stuff outside of this country due to restrictive tax burdens etc.etc.

USA as a market to sell things to is big, but to me that doesn't mean the economy is.

It is IMO based on borrowing and we have only begun to see the effects of getting the real "invoice" for all the borrowing , credit card and mortgage over leveraged "business.

Add to that the unconscious behavior of the government (Doesn't matter left or right) and the US is bankrupt!

Bankrupt or not, we will be able to check this out on out iphones and ipads

 

[alent1234]

True nVidia had fault with the GTX400s but it got worse with TSMCs low yields. ATI on the other hand did fine, but could have done much better if TSMC would have gotten their ***** together.

I mean, for the first 6 months, their was a complete dry stock of HD 5800s series.

the graphics card companies have been doing paper launches for years. one time nvidia "launched" some new card and they hadn't even finished the QA. it's all just hype to keep you from buying the competition

 

[jav6454]

the graphics card companies have been doing paper launches for years. one time nvidia "launched" some new card and they hadn't even finished the QA. it's all just hype to keep you from buying the competition

nVidia is known for paper launches. ATI did no such thing with the 5000 series. When they launched, they launched with stock, but since TSMC was so crap, the little stock dried up and future stock was constantly low, to a point ATI introduced the 5830 as a way to make money from lost Wafers.

 

[toddybody]

Apple customers living outside the US might not agree.

I truly dont mean to be xenophobic or the like...but Apple should provide benefit to Americans over all others. Their products should be made in America, and thus be cheaper for the American consumer...That said...I think you missed the point of my last comment (regarding Apple Tax); if Apple were to shift production and assembly to the US, certainly their costs would be higher and thus reflected in their price tag (as it currently is, but without sound justification). Right now, theyre far more expensive than equivalent products...though people cite "quality" and "R&D" as the reasons, we know its because they are a luxury good (and cost more for their brand appeal).

 

[Ping Guo]

Not really the forums to enable us to discuss this in detail.

First of all this is all about money.
Europe and the US do not have the labor pool and in Europe they don't have space and the freedom of unregulated business to do the kind of piece work
China does. By labor pool I mean a combination of poorly paid workers (poorly is in the eye of the beholder) and space to work in.

If you look at studies by the Cato institute there is already a shortage of low skilled workers now in the US, hence the reliance on illegal immigrants.
(And more coming IMO)

Europe has no mass or raw material, so they have to do things with high tech, efficiencies and innovation and export.

As far as the economy is concerned there are already plenty of consumers in China (look at the cell phone market) and that market will be growing.

The US leading companies are forced to do their stuff outside of this country due to restrictive tax burdens etc.etc.

USA as a market to sell things to is big, but to me that doesn't mean the economy is.

It is IMO based on borrowing and we have only begun to see the effects of getting the real "invoice" for all the borrowing , credit card and mortgage over leveraged "business.

Add to that the unconscious behavior of the government (Doesn't matter left or right) and the US is bankrupt!

Bankrupt or not, we will be able to check this out on out iphones and ipads

I agree this is veering way off topic. But I'd like to add that there's also a labor shortage here in China too! Just Google the topic if you think I'm joking. Turns out migrant workers aren't too happy living in a squalid dorm in Guangzhou, working 70 hours a week for $2 an hour for some sleazy Taiwanese boss, and being exposed to toxic chemicals. With western China being gradually developed, migrants are moving back to be closer to their homes and families, and who can blame them?

The labor shortage is most acute in the Pearl River Delta area.

 

[OllyW]

I truly dont mean to be xenophobic or the like...but Apple should provide benefit to Americans over all others. Their products should be made in America, and thus be cheaper for the American consumer...That said...I think you missed the point of my last comment (regarding Apple Tax); if Apple were to shift production and assembly to the US, certainly their costs would be higher and thus reflected in their price tag (as it currently is, but without sound justification). Right now, theyre far more expensive than equivalent products...though people cite "quality" and "R&D" as the reasons, we know its because they are a luxury good (and cost more for their brand appeal).

It would still be 'foreign made' to most of Apple's customers and even more expensive too.

Perhaps they should make them in the USA for the home market and keep production in the far east for the export market.

 

[adztaylor]

Are the flash memory chips from Samsung still being used in the iPad?

 

[toddybody]

It would still be 'foreign made' to most of Apple's customers and even more expensive too.

Perhaps they could make them in the USA for the home market and keep production in the far east for the export market.

Ha ha! "Home market"...I do apologize for any hint of AMURIKAN IGNERANSE. I just get frustrated with all the classic outsourcing practices. Thanks for the comments, stay well friend.

 

[ghostlyorb]

Cool. Maybe Apple was to picky for Samsung

 

[layte]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148)



400 series was Nvidia's own damn fault. They didn't understand the process and as a result got poor yield and high power consumption. ATI did just fine with the same process.

ATI had big stock shortages due to TSMC not being able to make anywhere near enough working CPU die's, and had to redesign what became the 69x0 series as TSMC couldn't hit their 28nm targets.

Edit: oops, I meant 32nm

 

[chrmjenkins]

True nVidia had fault with the GTX400s but it got worse with TSMCs low yields. ATI on the other hand did fine, but could have done much better if TSMC would have gotten their ***** together.

I mean, for the first 6 months, their was a complete dry stock of HD 5800s series.

Rumor is that ATI/AMD (DAAMIT) knew that the process was poor and doubled up on some key transistors to improve yield. Nvidia went into the process blind and as a result suffered poor yields.

Let's just be hopeful 28 nm isn't 40nm all over again. The industry could certainly use the 50% performance gains a new process can bring.

ATI had big stock shortages due to TSMC not being able to make anywhere near enough working CPU die's, and had to redesign what became the 69x0 series as TSMC couldn't hit their 28nm targets.

Northern Islands is a strange beast. There was a lot of confusion over the VLIW4 vs. VLIW5 stuff right up to launch. That's what happens when you out and cancel your 32nm process.

 

[Rafterman]

I guess they couldn't find a American co hey?

Chip fab is a very "dirty" industry and US environmental laws make it tough for US chip companies to make a profit.

 

[chrmjenkins]

Chip fab is a very "dirty" industry and US environmental laws make it tough for US chip companies to make a profit.

Intel is doing just fine. GloFo's woes are in family with AMD's woes. Many RFIC/MMIC companies have domestic fabs (GaAs, GaN etc.) that do well.

That being said, Apple doesn't have the same concerns with TSMC that they do with Chinese suppliers. Taiwan is a comparatively nice Asian country in terms of income per person.

 

[Mattsasa]

Interested to see the 28nm.

Definately

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

Chip fab is a very "dirty" industry and US environmental laws make it tough for US chip companies to make a profit.

Plus they'd be Union workers. So they'd be on Strike multiple times a year.

 

[Reach9]

Perfect.
Bring on the iPhone 5!

 

[infidel69]

I truly dont mean to be xenophobic or the like...but Apple should provide benefit to Americans over all others. Their products should be made in America, and thus be cheaper for the American consumer...That said...I think you missed the point of my last comment (regarding Apple Tax); if Apple were to shift production and assembly to the US, certainly their costs would be higher and thus reflected in their price tag (as it currently is, but without sound justification). Right now, theyre far more expensive than equivalent products...though people cite "quality" and "R&D" as the reasons, we know its because they are a luxury good (and cost more for their brand appeal).

Apple is the second biggest company in the US, but they could go under and it would barely affect our economy because they provide very few good paying jobs in this country. They outsource as much as possible and charge as much as they can for their products anyway. The auto companies for instance are much more important than Apple because they actually provide jobs you can support a family with. Apple should be ashamed of themselves for outsourcing as much as they do. Even Microsoft provides more good jobs to Americans than Apple. For a company that turned it's back on America they sure do get alot of love.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

I wish Apple would support AMERICANS through US production and assembly; those added jobs would be a life saver to our economy...and our exports would be that much better obviously. Their Apple Tax would actually be justifiable at that point.

I agree veyr and i'm glad to see someone with high morals state that. Not everyone here is blind by corporate greed and shiny new products made by the enemy and I will never time out on defending the issues.

 

[iansilv]

TSM is their stock symbol

 

[Vulpinemac]

That doesn't answer anything, because there have been serious hardware defects in Apple products in the past. Apple is no different from other companies in that regard.

Could you please list the hardware defects you're talking about? I mean, I know about the broken iMac screens (a design issue for the packaging, as I remember) and the video card issue a few years ago (not an Apple design), but I don't know of all that many actual hardware defects that were the fault of Apple's design process--merely cosmetic ones (the Cube).