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Will be interesting if Samsung buys TSMC 3nm capacity for their top-end :-)
I thought that Samsung fab'ed their own chips.
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Regulatory agencies can stop them from buying TSMC, but they cannot prevent Apple from creating its own fab business.
Sure, but good luck with that endeavor. Samsung and Intel are struggling to keep up with TSMC despite decades of expertise in the field and very deep pockets, so starting from scratch even with infinite money isn't gonna be a picnic. And won't solve Apple problem in the short term.
In any case, Apple investing into their own fab also makes sense from a geopolitical point. Apple is already beginning to diversify from China because of their shoddy covid policies causing delays all the time, and everyone can see the writing on the wall that says China is very high on the sanctions priority list of the West. Additionally, the threat of China invading Taiwan and TSMCs fabs getting blown up in a scorched-earth action or damaged by war is only growing bigger every day.
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Considering Apple funds a lot of TSMC's R&D I dare say they have a lot of leverage if they really wanna push it.
But Apple needs TSMC. Not saying you’re wrong, but TSMC also has leverage. TSMC doesn’t want to price Apple out, but at the same time, Apple can’t just pack up and go to a competitor. At the nodes they’re working at, going to a competitor could require a complete relayout with new design rules.
I wonder how they would react if they were offered 25% of Apple's 3nm capacity at the higher price.
This could be a good lesson for everybody.
My reading of this is that Apple is happy to wait a bit on next-gen given the macro conditions. However if they just admitted that it would be a big hit to image. So instead they are looking to create scapegoats. The most plausible scapegoat is the cutting-edge one with a price hike because there is maximum room for others to speculate on what isn’t right/good enough, and there is minimum risk of giving up their spot…
>By the time competition is up on it, Apple can return to their most familiar location: somewhat behind on the bleeding edge of tech, but ahead on integration and UX. Seems like a good tradeoff. Is the next years best TSMC chip really that much better than last year's? I doubt it.
> N3 technology will offer up to 70% logic density gain, up to 15% speed improvement at the same power and up to 30% power reduction at the same speed as compared with N5 technology.
That is a more modest bump than some previous nodes, but still seems worth a 6% increase in price depending on how yields shake out.
TSMC charging 6% more for the 3nm process seems reasonable. Article notes Apple accounts for 25% of their revenue and says this gives them leverage over TSMC but aren't they the only 3nm player in town?
Isn't this misleading? If Apple doesn't take the fab capacity then somebody else will.
TSMC charging 6% more for the 3nm process seems reasonable. Article notes Apple accounts for 25% of their revenue and says this gives them leverage over TSMC but aren't they the only 3nm player in town?
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Considering Apple funds a lot of TSMC's R&D I dare say they have a lot of leverage if they really wanna push it.
It appears they both equally need each other. If TMSC rejects Apple, what is Apple going to do? Use Intel chips in iPhones?
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There was a post on HN a few days ago showing the negotation emails between Jobs and NewsCorp/James Murdoch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5752212
Murdoch e-mails are nice in that they nicely highlight the multiple fronts nature of negotiating where you can often find compromise by shifting how you approach the problem. The way Jobs closes it is quite unusual however because in this case NewsCorp were late movers. Apple had already reached terms with all their competitors and could put on the table a take it or leave it offer which Murdoch couldn’t refuse. I wa…
Executives value their own time over anything else, and as such - they don't find it valuable to haggle over small details in lieu of just getting the deal done.
I'd love to be a fly on the wall during these negotiations. Just to see what the heck they even talk about, what information each party comes armed with, and what kinds of concessions get offered. I mean it isn't just a "we'll lower this" I bet there's lots of juicy confidential future roadmap stuff, things like "Ok we'll help you invest in this _____ tech and machinery but you have to knock off half a cent" or who k…
Apple: we'll pay no more for this item than ____ TSMC: you'll pay _____ or you can go to the other fab, oh right, you'll pay _____ -------- vendorSellingToBigBox: we would like _____ per unit of our product bigBoxBuyer: that's nice. we'll pay 40%______ per unit. you'll sell extremelyLargeNumberOfUnits, and make it up in volume. oh, if you don't sell a minimum number, you have to buy all of the unsold items back from…
Others will sell a white-label or generic brand to them. After all, it's just business.