I'm surprised that Apple is not considering opening up its own fabs. Tim Cook is all about vertical-integration and they have a mountain of cash that they could use to fund the initial startup capex.
Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage
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Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The US has its own TSMC supply (insert comments about it not being cutting edge) USA has been strategically re-homing TSMC to the US mainland for a long time now. 30% of all 2nm and better technologies are slated to be produced in Arizona by 2030. The real loser in all of this will be the EU which will be completely without the ability to produce or acquire chips. They'll just end up buying from China and USA, whic…
ASML...
Without San Diego based Cymer they can't move forward on their latest and greatest. As far as I know they still do R&D in San Diego even after purchase.
Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage
#63I'm surprised that Apple is not considering opening up its own fabs. Tim Cook is all about vertical-integration and they have a mountain of cash that they could use to fund the initial startup capex.
$20 billion for a new fab is a lot of money, even to Apple.
Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage
#64I'm surprised that Apple is not considering opening up its own fabs. Tim Cook is all about vertical-integration and they have a mountain of cash that they could use to fund the initial startup capex.
Semiconductor manufacturing is not an incremental step for Apple. It's an entirely new kind of vertical. They do not have the resources to do this. If they could they would have by now.
Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage
#65Calling Nvidia niche feels a bit wild given their status-quo right now, but from a foundry perspective, it seems true. Apple is the anchor tenant that keeps the lights on across 12 different mature and leading-edge fabs. Nvidia is the high-frequency trader hammering the newest node until the arb closes. Stability usually trades at a discount during a boom, but Wei knows the smartphone replacement cycle is the only pr…
Regardless of that, fab industry is based on a short and mid term auction-like planning.
If Nvidia pays more, Apple has to match.
Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage
#66I find that my cell phone which is 4 generations old and my desktop computer which is 2 generations old are totally adequate for everything I need to do, and I do not need faster processing
I used to think that.
I really don't care about most new phone features and for my laptop the M1 Max is still a really decent chip.
I do want to run local LLM agents though and I think a Mac Studio with an M5 Ultra (when it comes out) is probably how I'm going to do that. I need more RAM.
I bet I'm not the only one looking at that kind of setup now that was previously happy with what they had..
Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage
#67Nvidia direct silicon revenue is higher.
Also Nvidia's margins are higher which means that they will be willing to pay a higher unit price.
This seems like an open and closed case from TSMC's side.
Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is the traditional textbook yield curve logic, if I'm not wrong? Smaller area = higher probability of a surviving die on a dirty wafer. But I wonder if the sheer margin on AI silicon basically breaks that rule? If Nvidia can sell a reticle-sized package for 25k-30k USD, they might be perfectly happy paying for a wafer that only yields 30-40% good dies. Apple OTOH operates at consumer electronics price points. Th…
With current AI pricing for silicon, I think the math’s gone out the window. For Apple, they have binning flexibility, with Pro/Max/Ultra, all the way down to iPads - and that’s after the node yields have been improved via the gazillion iPhone SoC dies. NVIDIAs flexibility came from using some of those binned dies for GeForce cards, but the VRAM situation is clearly making that less important, as they’re cutting some…
> For Apple, they have binning flexibility, with Pro/Max/Ultra, all the way down to iPads
The Pro and Max chips are different dies, and the Ultra currently isn't even the same generation as the Max. And the iPads have never used any of those larger dies.
> NVIDIAs flexibility came from using some of those binned dies for GeForce cards
NVIDIA's datacenter chips don't even have display outputs, and have little to no fixed-function graphics hardware (raster and raytracing units), and entirely different memory PHYs (none of NVIDIA's consumer cards have ever used HBM).
Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage
#69Sneak preview of the TSMC shortage that will sweep the world in 2027 when China takes Taiwan and the TSMC scuttles their chip fabs on the island.
I don’t know the hedge to position against this but I’m pretty sure China will make good on its promise.
Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage
#70It seems a bit odd that data center operators aren’t willing to put their money where their mouth is. Data center operators say: expand more quickly. TSMC says: we need long term demand to justify that. And all the data center guys say is: don’t worry that won’t be an issue, trust us. I would think that if they were serious they would commit to cofinancing new foundries or signing long term minimum purchasing agreeme…
And what of the natural resources sustaining all of this? This conglomerate of data centers, gpus and other chips will surely have to push manufacturers to the maximum in other industries. I don't think sustainable energy, recycling and carbon credits will be enough to cover for it.