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

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

#41
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-trust

What would run afoul of antitrust laws? I don’t see it.

TSMC is a critical supplier of Apple and a bunch of Apple's competitors. Making it Apple-exclusive would kill AMD, Nvidia and most Android phones (Samsung and Huawei are the only exceptions using subpar non-TSMC chips) overnight. There is no way in hell that any antitrust regulator allows Apple to destroy their competitors with an anticompetitive purchase of a supplier.

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

#42
post #2

Considering how failed was the launch of the iPhone 14 Pro (I had to wait for 45 dayss before getting mine) and sales of the "iPhone 14" (which is just an iPhone 13, basically) this is just expected

Saying that the launch failed because it had such a long wait time (assuming due to popular demand) has a sort of Yogi Berra quality that I appreciate. He was the one who said, "No one goes there anymore; it's too crowded".

If the launch was delayed because of technical issues then that would be another matter. I'm really not too up on the differences between phones and the specifics of one launch or another these days. When my current iPhone (which I'm reasonably sure is an 11) encounters some issue, I'll go and get whatever number is current at that time.

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

#43
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.

They can pay with:

1. Bank loans

2. Apple stocks

Completely doable.

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

#44
post #31

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.

Are Intel getting cutting edge (3nm) chips made by TSMC ? I know they're outsourcing production of some of the older nodes, but that would be a bit surprising. Semiconductor manufacturing is all about scale - selling enough of each generation to fund development of the next generation (which is astronomically expensive). If Intel are buying cutting edge chips from TSMC then that would seem to be an act of desperation - helping their competitors because they have no choice due to their own troubles.

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

#45
post #2

Considering how failed was the launch of the iPhone 14 Pro (I had to wait for 45 dayss before getting mine) and sales of the "iPhone 14" (which is just an iPhone 13, basically) this is just expected

I'd put heavy quotes around "failed". There was a general slump in the smartphone market, and Appel was the only one increasing their sales in some months.

Plus there was pandemic issue in China factory and logistic chain.

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

#46
post #9

Why hasn't Apple just bought TSMC?

I expect it would be more likely they’d just go straight to ASML and start building their own fabs. That said, they may see enough value in their TSMC deal that it’s simply not worth what would be an eye-watering outlay for something that in the end may not really save them all that much.

It’s probably not seen as a bad thing internally that other rivals aren’t able to get on 3nm either, which wouldn’t be true if Apple weren’t buying up the supply.

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

#47

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…

Remember this is "N3" silicon, everyone wants N3E.

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

#48
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That is severely outdated number, please take a look at market cap from today:

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSM

it is $454B

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

#49
post #32
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

They got there by skimping on IO

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

#50
post #40

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.

OK, so with the 2nd generation "N3E" due to be available in 2nd half of the year, that's implying Apple have exclusive access to TSMC 3nm for next few months.
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