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Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

macrumors.com

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Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#31

Post by jb1991 »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #29

The article has no information on what this statement means. I'm sure TSMC hasn't just walked away from their other customers like NVidia and AMD. TSMC is still in process of ramping up production of their 3nm process (the article mentions they'll reach 45,000 wafers per month by March), so the only sensible reading of this statement seems to be that Apple are getting first X months (where X is unspecified) of produc…

It is interesting that Intel suddenly announced that they would be delaying their orders of this exact chip.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#32

Post by jb1991 »

nsteel wrote: post #15
deanc wrote: post #11

> Compared to 5nm process, the first-generation 3nm process can reduce power consumption by up to 45%, improve performance by 23% and reduce area by 16% compared to 5nm, while the second-generation 3nm process is to reduce power consumption by up to 50%, improve performance by 30% and reduce area by 35%. What kind of real-world impact are we likely to see on the 3nm chips for the new iPhone and M3 macs? These figures…

> reduce power consumption by up to 50%, improve performance by 30% and reduce area by 35% To be clear, you don't get all three. Also, are these Apple's numbers? They are better than what TSMC say (1st gen) 3nm silicon provides: > 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 https://w…

I’m curious why not? Apple Silicon so far has improved performance, and reduced power consumption. Does that mean that it’s a larger chip than the others that came before it?

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#33

Post by colinmorelli »

bioemerl wrote: post #25
etempleton wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they? With the current arrangement they get all the benefits and none of the risk. If TSMC falters they can go to whoever supplants TSMC and make the same arrangement and continue to have the latest and greatest chips.

> Why would they? They could annihilate all competition in the market except for them. Every single Android phone would be forced to use subpar manufacturing from there on out.

The FTC would likely block the transaction precisely because of this. If they didn't block it, Apple would - upon doing the above - immediately subject themselves to anti-trust litigation from a lot of parties with a lot of money. Really hard to see this working out well for them.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#35

Post by eppp »

bioemerl wrote: post #25
etempleton wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they? With the current arrangement they get all the benefits and none of the risk. If TSMC falters they can go to whoever supplants TSMC and make the same arrangement and continue to have the latest and greatest chips.

> Why would they? They could annihilate all competition in the market except for them. Every single Android phone would be forced to use subpar manufacturing from there on out.

They just choose to do it now?

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#36

Post by joseph_grobbles »

impulser_ wrote: post #26
warrenm wrote: post #9

Why hasn't Apple just bought TSMC?

TSMC is worth over 500b dollars. Apple doesn't have that amount of capital to even make an offer lol.

It's called a stock swap, and Apple could easily accomplish it if from a financial perspective.

They could never achieve it with governments and regulators, however. Like 0.00% chance. Even if the government of Taiwan allowed it, there would be a long line of other governments and regulators blocking it.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#37

Post by hcaz »

impulser_ wrote: post #26
warrenm wrote: post #9

Why hasn't Apple just bought TSMC?

TSMC is worth over 500b dollars. Apple doesn't have that amount of capital to even make an offer lol.

Apple has 100bn in available cash, they defiantly do have the capital to make an offer if they wanted

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#38

Post by BirAdam »

sylware wrote: post #3

I wonder how many transistor shrink steps we once EUV High-NA tools are in production. Namely, before it becomes insane and too much unreliable to be reasonable.

Every generation of shrink has pushed a company or two out of the fab business. I would guess that around 10-12 angstroms TSMC, Samsung, or Intel will cease being competitive at the leading edge and fold. Most likely that will happen one more time before the shrinking is no longer physically possible while maintaining chip function.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#39

Post by warrenm »

impulser_ wrote: post #26
warrenm wrote: post #9

Why hasn't Apple just bought TSMC?

TSMC is worth over 500b dollars. Apple doesn't have that amount of capital to even make an offer lol.

Where'd you get that number?

Wikipedia seem to put it at a max under $150b[0]

-------------

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#40

Post by amelius »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #29

The article has no information on what this statement means. I'm sure TSMC hasn't just walked away from their other customers like NVidia and AMD. TSMC is still in process of ramping up production of their 3nm process (the article mentions they'll reach 45,000 wafers per month by March), so the only sensible reading of this statement seems to be that Apple are getting first X months (where X is unspecified) of produc…

The article says:

> Apple has reportedly secured all available orders for N3, TSMC's first-generation 3-nanometer process that is likely to be used in the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro lineup as well as new MacBooks scheduled for launch in the second half of 2023.

Note that they phrase it as: first-generation.

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