Its about time they start bringing manufacturing back to the US baby steps đź‘Ť
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Some Apple Silicon Chips Will Soon Be Produced and Packaged in U.S.
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Control of - and access to - semi-conductors plays an increasingly significant role in global power dynamics, this move has benefits and repercussions far beyond Apple
While it may be business-friendly, making chip wafers is a water intensive task. When water restrictions start, production will be hurt.
1. Please see quote from article:
2. Can and does are two different things.
Not to mention plenty of sun, which makes solar panels a practical choice. It won't be long before Apple starts requiring anyone working with them to be working off of clean energy.
I am a shareholder (albeit a small one) and I am happy to see this being done in the USA.
I believe this time is macrumors writer not understanding exactly what "packaging" means in silicon context; it is literally cutting edge semiconductor manufacturing technology, and they mistook the term as something like Amazon warehouse boxing
These would not be the latest 3nm or 5nm SoCs as those will still only be made in Taiwan (especially 3nm since TSMC is still de-risking those processes).
More likely would be things built on older 5nm and 7nm processes like the SiP for the Apple Watch SE and the H and W chips for the AirPods family.
This is excellent news. Glad to see Apple helping to create more jobs in the U.S.
Assembly/Test does not require nearly as much water as a wafer fab… and the wafers will be the ones that come from the TSMC fab in Phoenix, whatever node they’ll really go with at launch still remains to be seen, last it was 5nm
Amkor is what's known as an A/T, or Assembly/Test site.
All "chips" are produced this way. The chips start out as part of a wafer (made in a wafer fab, which is what TSMC owns), then the wafer is tested (probed). The probed wafers are shipped to an A/T, where the wafer is cut into individual chips, and the chips are assembled into packages that can be inserted onto a board.
Plenty of wafers produced in US wafer fabs are shipped to A/Ts in Asia, then the finished goods either go into distribution (indirect sales), or to product distribution centers (direct sales).
All "chips" are produced this way. The chips start out as part of a wafer (made in a wafer fab, which is what TSMC owns), then the wafer is tested (probed). The probed wafers are shipped to an A/T, where the wafer is cut into individual chips, and the chips are assembled into packages that can be inserted onto a board.
Plenty of wafers produced in US wafer fabs are shipped to A/Ts in Asia, then the finished goods either go into distribution (indirect sales), or to product distribution centers (direct sales).
They need to ditch th efficiency cores and make a full 16 core performance core only chip.
it is found in some software. ALL digital audio workstation software that the efficiency cores are not used at all.
Beter yet. make a 24 core all performance core chip. to be used in Mac Studio only.
it is found in some software. ALL digital audio workstation software that the efficiency cores are not used at all.
Beter yet. make a 24 core all performance core chip. to be used in Mac Studio only.
Apple lowercase silicon, not Apple Silicon (M1, M2, etc.) Which, they DO use a variety of silicon parts in the products they build… might be a perfect fit for the low volume Vision Pro like it was perfect for the low volume Mac Pro.
There ARE reasons, pretty good ones, actually. And, the reasons are all publicly available and haven’t changed a lot. So, if you find an older article that goes over the complexities of mass manufacturing and why it’s not done in the US, it’s likely still accurate. (I don’t think the US has even shipped more vehicles than non-US countries for years)
Digital Audio Workstation software still needs the OS under it to keep on doing the mundane housekeeping tasks. So, even if the app isn’t using efficiency cores, the OS the app’s running on is.
Maybe not, but the US is the#1 producer of BMWs worldwide and exports 60% of the production.
Per the Organisation Internationale des Constructeurs d'Automobiles, the US is #2 in production behind China; and has been since 2010. The US was #1 in 2005 and earlier. In terms of exports, US was third in % and dollar value behind Germany and Japan; which make sense if you look at market size.
As manufacturing become more and more automated, they should be able to use robots in AZ to build more and more complex stuff.
I'm retired now and only have PCBs made as a hobby. The Chinese company I use (JLCPCB) to make PCBs from design files I send, no person touches them. They have an enormous automated, hands-off system and can do one-off printed circuit boards for about 40 cents each. They don't get the cost that low by using cheap labor, they got it so low by investing billions in automation. Why don't they do this here? Because it costs billions to design and build the robotic equipment and you get better returns by simply investing those billions in the stock market.
Notice the article said they are only building the new plant in AZ because of the $2B CHIPS government funding.
Also, notice that Apple is not doing this, an Apple supplier is doing this because of the government subsidy. Apple is the customer.
This is packaging, not fabrication. The low humidity in AZ is much more important for this stage of production than water supply.
No they won't. This isn't a consumer issue, it's a supply chain issue which means they'll use it as an excuse for poor quarter earnings reports.
The there is more to "packaging". The chips as produced by TMSC had pads in the chip where tiny wired can be attached. The packed part has pins that can be soldered to a PCB. "Packaging" means making the pins, conecting the pins with the wires to the chips and then encapsulating the hole thing in epoxy. Then they place the little plastic bricks in a spocketed tape so that they can. be handled by robots. The long tapes are placed in big plastic reels, the reels boxed and paletized and shipped. A big job is conneting those nearly microscopc wires. The wire is typically solid gold and so thin you can just see it. There are likely maybe 100 of these. The machines that do is work very fast and typicaly use automated computer vision systems to find the pads on the chip. 40 years ago this work was done in the US by women using bionular microscopes and very carful hand work but back then parts were larger, had fewer pins and the finished parts were expensive. Those jobs are gone forever replaced by billion dollar robots