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TSMC Not Charging Apple for Defective 3nm Chips Ahead of iPhone 15 Pro Introduction
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None of us are in the halls at TSMC, but we can assume they're not going to throw away more cash than they have to. I'd think a better (but not perfect) analogy is to an airline flying a route.
Say the airline is already committed to flying route N3B. If Customer B and C cancel their flights, there's no benefit to the airline flying that empty seat. It's (probably) financially better for the airline to maybe offer customer M3 discounted companion seats to get more cash flow from their already committed to flight... Then maybe their new flight attendant can learn more from serving regular customer M3, his child - A17, his older brothers - M3Pro and M3Max and his fat uncle, M3Ultra.
In what bizarro world is it okay to buy a carton of beer, find that 4 of 24 cans were already damaged, and you still had to accept them?
Only paying for undamaged goods sounds like basic business 101.
In most cases, sure. However, if the cost of ensuring 100% perfect is more than allowing for some damage then allowing for damage makes good business sense; although a company probably just factors in the damage in the initial costs so the receiver doesn't "pay for them."
In the wiring harness case, it's also just cheaper and simplifies logistics to design and install one part rather than have a different wiring harness for different configurations. It means that the car can be partially built at the factory before they decide what the final configuration is going to be.
True. Although BMW eventually stopped prewiring. The same concept holds for chips as well - one design with easy mods reduces costs and complexity in supply chains.
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Defect rates for TSMC 3nm (N3B)?
from (https://wccftech.com/tsmc-not-charging-apple-for-defective-3nm-chips), which in turn references a paywalled report in The Information:
That does sound like TSMC worked diligently worked to push those yields up as quickly as possible. Win/win?
from (https://wccftech.com/tsmc-not-charging-apple-for-defective-3nm-chips), which in turn references a paywalled report in The Information:
That does sound like TSMC worked diligently worked to push those yields up as quickly as possible. Win/win?
No doubt Apple is already looking for their next supplier to court and date and wed and push to far and strong arm and abandon, oh look they're buying arm stock https://www.macrumors.com/2023/08/08/apple-to-invest-in-arm-ipo/.
Apple really has no dogmas.
Until last year, the "dogma" was to make even cheap phones have the same SoC as the flagship.
Then TSMC faltered and the plan was changed to the A15/A16 split and then to the A16/A17 split.
If in the future it will make sense to make N3E chips only, we'll be back seeing iPhone SE, iPhone 16 and 16 Pro with the same SoC.
Speak for yourself. Apple setup the ground work for this with the current lineup. Only the Pro models will have the newest CPU at launch. The non-pros get the hand-me-downs from last year.
2023 models
15 Pro / 15 Pro Max = A17
15 / 15 Plus = A16
2022 models
14 Pro / 14 Pro Max = A16
14 = A15