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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

#161

Post by smoldesu »

hbn wrote: post #84
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History suggests we will see obnoxious hacker news comments about how the M-series processors are some unrivaled alien technology that will be forever unbeaten when it comes to performance followed by AMD releasing a low wattage CPU with better multicore performance about 8 months later (or whenever they get fab capacity anyways).

The first M1 devices released in November 2020. Where is AMD's competitive chip that came out July 2021?

AMD had the Ryzen 4800u shipping with a similar power envelope and higher multicore scores. Battery life was a good few hours shorter than the M1, but it was also manufactured on 7nm versus the Apple's 5nm. Performance tends to favor people on the denser node, so it's impressive to see x86 still competitive by modern standards.

If you need further evidence of this pattern, look at Nvidia's ridiculous 40-series cards. More expensive than a used car, but they were able to secure TSMC's 4nm node and annihilate everyone else. Apple did the same thing with M1, and it looks like that's what they're gearing up for with M3.

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

#162

Post by mikeyouse »

tarsinge wrote: post #150
coder543 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of my key takeaways is the iPod represented not one but multiple simultaneous tech revolutions. Consumer storage until then unseen I disagree entirely, for reasons that should be obvious once we examine the actual state of the market at the time. Storage was not the thing that made iPod successful. The microdrive had existed for several years by then[0][1], developed originally for digital cameras. Like most st…

I didn't know about the Microdrive but Wikipedia says model larger than 1GB up to 4GB were first available in 2004, nearly 3 years after the iPod. At that time for $499 it costed you could already get a 40GB iPod.

Yeah, apple surely could've negotiated price discounts and I'm not sure what the bill of materials cost of the Toshiba hard drives were, but the larger IBM Microdrives were released in late 2000 and were $499 for the 1GB version (https://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-1-gb-microdrive/). Even if that's a 100% markup, you're talking about $250 for 1GB.

Hard to build a consumer device with a MSRP of $399 if one of the components is over 60% of that cost. Competing firms estimated the total BOM for the original iPod at more like $200.

They were also surely looking at the potential trajectory of storage improvements too -- by the time the 4gb microdrives had been released in 2004, Apple was already shipping 40gb iPods and selling them for $499.

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

#163

Post by John23832 »

sofixa wrote: post #41
John23832 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apple buying TSMC doesn't necessarily mean that they are restricting the supply of their competitors. I think you're confused about what anti-trust is or how it works.

A TSMC acquisition would only be subject to anti-trust if Apple restricted access to supplies that their competitors currently have access to. Buying/owning the means of supply for your competitors isn't subject to anti-trust. Apple would gladly continue supplying chips with TSMC. Their are fabs created for older features that Apple doesn't use that are core to TSMC's profitability. They're not going to cut that overnight. Especially under a COO-CEO like Cook.

The monopolistic practice of acquisition would be to hamstring your competition. In this case, the acquisition would be based on synergy.

Samsung, a phone competitor and also screen supplier to Apple, controls the OLED market. They are not subject to anti-trust because they supply a fair market.

A more current example would be the Microsoft Activision acquisition. Microsofts defense in that is that they will continue supplying Call Of Duty (and similar high profile games) to competitors.

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

#164

Post by coder543 »

tarsinge wrote: post #150
coder543 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of my key takeaways is the iPod represented not one but multiple simultaneous tech revolutions. Consumer storage until then unseen I disagree entirely, for reasons that should be obvious once we examine the actual state of the market at the time. Storage was not the thing that made iPod successful. The microdrive had existed for several years by then[0][1], developed originally for digital cameras. Like most st…

I didn't know about the Microdrive but Wikipedia says model larger than 1GB up to 4GB were first available in 2004, nearly 3 years after the iPod. At that time for $499 it costed you could already get a 40GB iPod.

I had added this paragraph before you posted but probably after you saw my comment:

>> Maybe Apple would have slightly higher storage capacities, but... we're talking about a relatively marginal difference compared to the gulf in storage capacity between these microdrive MP3 players and the flash based MP3 players of the time. An advantage, but not a revolution.

Regardless, it turns out that it wasn't even a capacity advantage, since the Personal Jukebox[0][1] was released in 1999 and offered 4.8GB of storage in a package that weighed 300g instead of the 185g of the 2001 iPod. A difference in weight, sure, but... modern smartphones are often between those two weights, so a few extra grams would have been fine and the Personal Jukebox would have flown off shelves, if storage capacity was the defining feature.

Just telling a compelling anecdote doesn't make it accurate. Apple had other advantages at the time, including the scroll wheel and iTunes, as well as brand recognition. Based on the evidence of what existed at the time, I do not think storage was the compelling thing that made iPod more of a success than the Personal Jukebox.

[0]: https://www.pcworld.com/article/520590/evolution_of_the_mp3_...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Jukebox

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

#165

Post by snom380 »

nekoashide wrote: post #131
cubefox wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how big a difference this made. If I remember correctly there were iPod alternatives with similar drives pretty quickly.

That's just it, being first to the market is sometimes more important than worrying about competitors. They killed it so hard with the ipod that even if the zune was a better device at the time people wanted the ipod.

The Zune came quite a while later, though (2006 vs iPod in 2001). The main competitors at the time was Creative (Nomad) and frin 2003 (IIRC) iRiver, and they typically had slow USB ports at the time and were more bulky.

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

#166

Post by John23832 »

asah wrote: post #130
sofixa wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

...but meanwhile it's still fine to corner the market on 3nm... (nevermind that modern chips are a hybrid of different feature sizes...)

Apple isn't cornering the market. Apple is buying all available supply for actual use.

"Cornering the market" typically refers to controlling supply of a product to restrict supply to the larger market and drive up price.

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

#167

Post by conductr »

edude03 wrote: post #143
Waterluvian wrote: post #4

These headlines always make it sound like the chips are fungible. Is it that they’re basically saturating the entire production capacity with their orders?

Yeah that's exactly what's happening - TSMC predicts they can make N chips per Y period, and apple has said they'd like 100% of Y period to be dedicated to making chips for Apple.

It’s totally possible Apple put in an order for 200% and tsmc said we can only 100%. It’s actually more likely scenario and In this case, apple is not a strategizing villain purposely buying up all the supply.

It’s also possible they bought/earned exclusivity on the product. Maybe they funded or helped the R&D, in which case these things wouldn’t exist without apple so it makes sense they should get first access.

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

#168

Post by goosedragons »

tarsinge wrote: post #150
coder543 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of my key takeaways is the iPod represented not one but multiple simultaneous tech revolutions. Consumer storage until then unseen I disagree entirely, for reasons that should be obvious once we examine the actual state of the market at the time. Storage was not the thing that made iPod successful. The microdrive had existed for several years by then[0][1], developed originally for digital cameras. Like most st…

I didn't know about the Microdrive but Wikipedia says model larger than 1GB up to 4GB were first available in 2004, nearly 3 years after the iPod. At that time for $499 it costed you could already get a 40GB iPod.

By that time competitors had 1.8" HDD with similar capacities. Creative also had a 40GB MP3 player with a 1.8" drive in 2004, the Zen Touch.

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

#170

Post by bioemerl »

etempleton wrote: post #114
bioemerl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So Apple would spend probably over 100 billion dollars to buy TSMC and make them a less profitable company by not serving other companies? All this would do would weaken TSMC and strengthen other chip manufacturers for a couple years of absolute chip dominance. But they already have chip dominance, so it is for essentially zero gain.

> make them a less profitable company by not serving other companies?

They become part of apple. With a stranglehold on chips the price of apple products as a whole, or their sales, will skyrocket.

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