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Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

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Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#151

Post by pier25 »

msh wrote: post #134
MichaelZuo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple customers’ appetite for compute is practically bottomless. I don't think so, the typical iPhone user has not scaled up their compute needs much past the 2015 A9. And if you exclude the computational photography stuff, I could imagine some users don't take advantage of it at all.

I think that the games on my iphone would disagree.

What percentage of iOS users are really hardcore gamers? I don't know, but I doubt it's even close to 25%.

It's anecdotal but I don't know of any iOS/iPadOS user that plays anything remotely demanding. Most users I know don't game. Those that do usually play casual games like Candy Crush.

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#152

Post by hoorible »

bhouston wrote: post #147
Veliladon wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be correct if investment were the bottleneck. It's not. The bottleneck on advanced processes is how fast ASML can build its EUV fabrication machines and they're extremely complicated pieces of kit with lots of specialized parts that are also extremely complicated pieces of kit. Even with all our modern production ability we're limited in how quickly we can assemble these machines that can actually do the li…

Why can't ASML scale? They are siting on $20B of orders. That is insane. What is ASML's delivery throughput of these machines?

My understanding is that it could, but these machines take a really long time to build. Probably a simplification, but it’s likely not unfair to say that by the time they scaled 3nm production, we’d already have moved on to 2nm, etc

Asianometry YouTube channel did a few really good videos on chip fabbing and the unique challenges. Scale is addressed IIRC. Highly recommend.

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#153

Post by jryle70 »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #122
samwillis wrote: post #2

Some people may criticise the "monopoly" Apply have of TSMC latest nodes, but I think it's ultimately good. TSMC need to know they have a customer for new nodes in order to invest in them, thats what Apple are in the unique position to give with their war chest of cash. This investment by Apple eventually leads its way to other customers and smaller businesses. The whole industry thrives on the wake Apple leaves behi…

Do you have any evidence whatsoever that TSMC would struggle financially without Apple? Sounds like FUD to me.

I don't think they will be struggling, just that Apple is willing to pop up cash, or have clear commitment in advance. Businesses prefer clear and stable outlook.

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#154

Post by comex »

xipix wrote: post #137
samwillis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s not as fast as big, dedicated GPU silicon It's not yet . Apples combined memory architecture enables them to significantly cut the cost of bundling more memory for various GPU, Neural or other domain specific cores. I believe they will catch up or even overtake Nvidia as the leading AI platform. Desktop AI class GPUs are hell expensive. If Apple can get something 50% as performant, but in an iPhone Pro or MacB…

It's so funny to see Apple's "combined memory architecture" praised. When Intel did this a decade+ ago with its integrated GPUs, it was roundly slated.

Well, the difference is that compared to a baseline where GPUs typically get faster RAM than CPUs, Apple is providing fast RAM to both, whereas Intel provided slow RAM to both. Of course, that’s hardly Intel’s fault given that their integrated GPUs are aimed at the low end and are usually paired with external socketed RAM.

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#155

Post by Veliladon »

bhouston wrote: post #147
Veliladon wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be correct if investment were the bottleneck. It's not. The bottleneck on advanced processes is how fast ASML can build its EUV fabrication machines and they're extremely complicated pieces of kit with lots of specialized parts that are also extremely complicated pieces of kit. Even with all our modern production ability we're limited in how quickly we can assemble these machines that can actually do the li…

Why can't ASML scale? They are siting on $20B of orders. That is insane. What is ASML's delivery throughput of these machines?

They make about 50 a year. One of the parts in these machines is a 30cm mirror that is the flattest that humans can make with our current level of technology.

If you have a way to churn them out please let Zeiss SMT know.

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#156

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

__alexs wrote: post #149
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good thing about SW is you can always choose to change things in the future. Nothing is stopping Apple to implement support Vulkan now if they wanted to. It's not like they can't afford the engineering effort. Windows supports both DirectX and Vulkan.

Not many games support Vulkan though.

Game devs aren't gonna bother implementing Vulkan if MacOS doesn't first support it.

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#157

Post by michelb »

bhouston wrote: post #147
Veliladon wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be correct if investment were the bottleneck. It's not. The bottleneck on advanced processes is how fast ASML can build its EUV fabrication machines and they're extremely complicated pieces of kit with lots of specialized parts that are also extremely complicated pieces of kit. Even with all our modern production ability we're limited in how quickly we can assemble these machines that can actually do the li…

Why can't ASML scale? They are siting on $20B of orders. That is insane. What is ASML's delivery throughput of these machines?

Here's a good docu about ASML that shows some of the challenges in making these machines: https://www.vpro.nl/programmas/tegenlicht/kijk/backlight/asm...

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#158

Post by bhj »

Maursault wrote: post #128
thoughtsimple wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only on Intel Macs which are going away soon (only 2019 Mac Pro is remaining outside of refurbished.) Apple Silicon doesn't currently have any provision for external graphics cards.

There are two issues. 1) Apple Silicon won't support PCIe. 2) Apple doesn't want it to. #2 means Apple is taking nVidia and AMD head on in the GPU space. Apple wants to control everything, and allowing these competitors on their platform is giving away too much. Because Apple Silicon scales better than competitors' hw, the desire for third party GPU is probably going to evaporate within a few generations of Apple Sil…

AS supports Thunderbolt just fine. Isn't the lack of eGPU support due to lack of ARM drivers for them?

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#159

Post by freedomben »

taylodl wrote: post #92
michaelsshaw wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using faster computer chips to make faster computers, rather than Apple products, should be the focus, yes.

Apple's phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop products are computers. And they're making them faster, apparently. I would argue the phone is where the focus should be since that's the primary computer for many people around the world.

I think GP's point is not that apple's products aren't computers (they are of course, although Apple themselves has been positioning them less as general purpose computers and more as appliances, especially ios devices), but that it only runs/benefits apple's walled garden system. If it was open hardware it could benefit computers in general no matter what OS you run, whether embedded and tiny or huge gaming workstation.

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#160

Post by nordsieck »

Maursault wrote: post #128
thoughtsimple wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only on Intel Macs which are going away soon (only 2019 Mac Pro is remaining outside of refurbished.) Apple Silicon doesn't currently have any provision for external graphics cards.

There are two issues. 1) Apple Silicon won't support PCIe. 2) Apple doesn't want it to. #2 means Apple is taking nVidia and AMD head on in the GPU space. Apple wants to control everything, and allowing these competitors on their platform is giving away too much. Because Apple Silicon scales better than competitors' hw, the desire for third party GPU is probably going to evaporate within a few generations of Apple Sil…

It'll be interesting to see what happens with the Mac Pro.

It could be that Apple does away with it entirely and the Mac Studio is the new Pro.

Or they might make a machine with PCIe support, but make it so expensive that only people with a serious need get access to it.

Or something else.

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