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Apple Unsuccessfully Tried to Purchase Exclusive Access to TSMC Chip Production for iOS Devices
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market cap $74B. Buyout premiums typically range from 20-50%. Assuming a best case scenario of a 20% premium, you're looking at a $88.8B price tag.
They gave up on that failure long ago. Sold it off as well in 2005 or 06. I don't remember to who though. It is a field they have tried to get into by scaling their atom cpus too. Only to have the power issue and crippling the chip.
If they want to get into the mobile sector they need to pick up a company that knows what they are doing. Intel is strong for desktops, servers, workstations, etc... They just do not have mobile experience and focus. Although they need to foe the future.
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Yes, but I read on GameStar Hardware news that AMD will discontinue CPU for desktop after the FX83XX series. Now, you are right about the highly integrated systems using APU but for PC gamers, this is not the ideal solution because if you need a strong CPU and not an APU, you want to have a dedicated GPU (which you can upgrade individually) with dedicated, usually faster and higher bandwidth RAM etc. Either way - if this is true and they give up on competing with the Intel i-series to concentrate on APU and Server CPU (btw: they have the only 16x core processor there), they might have quite some capacity left to waver ARM processors.
I think what is behind this is that the trend to go away from desktops gives Intel and AMD less and less margin on home use CPU. Integrating graphics is the current trend. Professionals who need more than an APU as CPU can usually afford an Opteron - at least the theory behind it. Well, that is bad for gamers who want to have their own rigs. See, I have a Phenom II 1100T which is still the fastest AMD CPU until next month the new FX8350 comes around. APU only come with up to quad core. They might have a 1866MHz memory bus but any dedicated GPU card will have faster memory interfaces than that if it is not low-end.
Edit: Actually, I think the last independent desktop CPU will be the piledriver next year which fist comes as APU and then in 28nm CPU - guessing octo cores there. My secret hope is they will fit AM3+ sockets which I have so I can upgrade from my 1100T hexa core.
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What?
You're asking the guy (Tim Cook) who got Apple out of the manufacturing racket -- possibly the greatest logistical decision Apple has made in the past fifteen years -- to get back into manufacturing?
Really?
Apple would be screwed because their already a shortage of chip supplies end of story. They(apple) would struggle to fill the void.
This, law suit aside, not good business to have all your eggs or chips in one basket. Let alone the company you are entrenched in lawsuits with you stopping or slowing production of the chip you most need.
Intel Medfield (new atom) is a very very good chip. Its as fast as arm quad cores and its only a single core. X86 is still much faster than arm. The new medfield atoms also have similar power requirements to their arm counterparts as well. Once a dual core medfield phone or better yet tablet is out ARM is gonna have to step their game up a ton.
Really now ?
http://www.extremetech.com/computin...intels-first-x86-medfield-smartphone-reviewed
Sorry, no.
Only 5%? Wow. I would have thought they would have been more of Samsungs chip business given the market share of the iPhones/iPads etc. Hmm. Do you have a link that states this? I am curious.
I know a lot of the phone manufactures use them. Just curious on where this number came from.
True dat.
A lot of people who get their news from Mac-centric sites often overlook just how small a slice of Samsung's business Apple actually is.
Sure, Apple is currently Samsung's single largest customer, but only for the last couple years and Sony is a very close second.
This chart is from 2010 and doesn't reflect Apple's more recent order increases, but last I heard the sum of all of Apple's business with Samsung is still less than 5%:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Electronics#Major_customers
It's a big world out there. Apple is one of the largest and most powerful multinationals on earth, but they're not the entire earth, just one slice of it.
Given the way sands shift over time, one can hardly blame TSMC for not wanting to alienate the entire world by putting all of its eggs in one basket.
This is a good move by apple, eventhough they didn't lock them up with exclusive rights, and least they have another vendor.
Hopefully, the quality will be there once TSMC gets up and running.
Hopefully, the quality will be there once TSMC gets up and running.
seriously?
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Not to mention - ok - you now have the company. Now make the acquisition profitable. How long does that take?
Me too. They buy quite a lot of NAND. (23% of the worlds supply at this time) http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/01/06/apple-bought-23-of-the-worlds-nand-flash-last-quarter/
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for logic/foundry: Intel, TSMC and Samsung are the leaders. IBM comes up with good stuff, but seems to mainly be in the game to license technology and mainly make chips for their high end servers and game consoles. UMC is good, but more of a follower. Global Foundries is trying to be a player, but is lagging.
for memory: Samsung, Hynix and Toshiba are the leaders. Micron would say they are in that group and probably aren't far off. Will be interesting to see what they do with the Elpida/Rexchip fabs.
so Samsung is a leader in both logic/foundry and memory and has the attitude and cash to try to be the manufacturing king of both.
i tip my hat to TSMC for not grabbing the Apple or Qualcomm cash. would have been a very short-sighted move with high potential for long term downside.
What about the intellectual property???
Pretty sure all of those designs are "made in America".
Well remember cell phones and tablet are only a small part of all the chips devices samsung makes chips for.
A good part of the devices you use have computer chips and processors in them and a like 40% of those are all supplied by Samsung.
NAND Memory(flash memory) is used in huge amounts of things.
Just get your mind away from cell phones and you see how much bigger that market is.
That and Apple's long history of back stabling and screwing over their supplies I sure as hell would not trust them to get into bed only with them.
You are really the fanboy, APPLE is dead wrong, They are the way to becoming hated, losing the rest of the fading aura of being a good company. These patent lawsuits are not only stupid in the long run but really anti American spirit, Rounded corners make me laugh.
Huh?
Patents exemplify the America spirit.
Something that is lost on the entitlement generations.
Not only to patents reward those who invest their time and money into the development of ideas but it also FORCES competitors to innovate to get around patents.
Really don't know why this is lost on your people.
Then again these are the same people who want everything handed to them and think that they are entitled to the hard work of others (in many forms) so I really shouldn't be surprised.
If you were to invest 5 years of your life and your life savings into something you thought would change the world would you patent it? You bet.
Would you simply let other people use the IP you worked so hard to create? Nope.
After all, what is the reward for the risk you took with your time and money if there was no way to recoup your initial investment of time and money.
I bet you thought the guy who invested and patented the windshield wiper should have never sued car manufacturers. Pretty "obvious" invention, right?
And the fact of the matter is that the tech blogger nerds fandroids have done a great job at vilifying Apple why ignoring the exact same lawsuits brought by Google, Motorola, Samsung, ect.
YOU are DEAD WRONG.
Right, but a lot of Americans could lose their jobs if Apple stops getting chips out of Samsung in Austin.
I think the ideas and principles of Patents is fantastic. But the current system is extremely broken. I'm all for rewarding people for the things you wrote about above. Personally, I don't think simple and obvious things should be patented. I am not judging right now which of Apple's patents (or any other companies) fall into this category - but there are so many patents that have been rewarded that do, indeed, deserve to be challenged and/or invalidated.
I would find it hard to believe that anyone thinks otherwise.
Qualcomm vs Nokia was the big patent battle
Apple vs Samsung is the most overrated IP battle in history. No matter what happens, there is no indication that Samsung's flagship products are going to be pulled from US stores.
No, the big IP battle(s) was Qualcomm vs Nokia that ended in 2008 and possibly Qualcomm vs Broadcom which was also eventually settled. Winning is owning exclusivity. Does anyone have exclusivity like this that Qualcomm currently enjoys with 4G LTE multimode baseband chips:
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-...band-chip-supply-hurting-LTE-smartphone-sales
"The most likely new suppliers of multimode LTE baseband chips to alleviate the shortage are Broadcom, Nvidia/Icera, Renesas Mobile and ST-Ericsson. However, with the time required for those vendors to sample 28-nm basebands, have terminal vendors select their products, integrate them into new devices and secure regulatory approvals, 2013 will be the earliest that any of them will be shipping in volume. And until then Qualcomm will continue to have an almost exclusive run of the multimode LTE market."
As for Intel phones, Intel purchased Infineon and then key patents from InterData, but I see no evidence they can assemble all of the IP needed to create a baseband chip to compete with Qualcomm's. That may be why reports I have googled indicate that Intel is focusing on LTE more related to China's version of LTE, TD-LTE, a version that China is working very hard to export to other Asian countries.
Apple vs Samsung is the most overrated IP battle in history. No matter what happens, there is no indication that Samsung's flagship products are going to be pulled from US stores.
No, the big IP battle(s) was Qualcomm vs Nokia that ended in 2008 and possibly Qualcomm vs Broadcom which was also eventually settled. Winning is owning exclusivity. Does anyone have exclusivity like this that Qualcomm currently enjoys with 4G LTE multimode baseband chips:
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-...band-chip-supply-hurting-LTE-smartphone-sales
"The most likely new suppliers of multimode LTE baseband chips to alleviate the shortage are Broadcom, Nvidia/Icera, Renesas Mobile and ST-Ericsson. However, with the time required for those vendors to sample 28-nm basebands, have terminal vendors select their products, integrate them into new devices and secure regulatory approvals, 2013 will be the earliest that any of them will be shipping in volume. And until then Qualcomm will continue to have an almost exclusive run of the multimode LTE market."
As for Intel phones, Intel purchased Infineon and then key patents from InterData, but I see no evidence they can assemble all of the IP needed to create a baseband chip to compete with Qualcomm's. That may be why reports I have googled indicate that Intel is focusing on LTE more related to China's version of LTE, TD-LTE, a version that China is working very hard to export to other Asian countries.
Apple is 8.8% of Samsung's business. HP is next, at 3.2%.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-07/apple-ties-to-samsung-in-sharp-contrast-to-courtoom-clash.html