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Apple is America's semiconductor problem

semiconductor-digest.com

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Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#161

Post by threeseed »

ankit219 wrote: post #107

A weird article. Apple was not the first or the only company to look to East Asia for cheap manufacturing, elctronic equipments, chips, or cheap labor. The trend was started and accelerated by motor companies and hardware just followed suit. Then, some other points are just...there. Apple is America's semiconductor problem because Apple is so big it purchases things in bulk and gets discounts - like every other big c…

> This is a market failure more than an Apple failure

Arguably it's a Microsoft failure more than anything.

If they had delivered a version of Windows for ARM capable of seamlessly emulating x86 code with no compromises and released it a decade ago the world would likely be different.

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#162

Post by klausa »

peppertree wrote: post #62
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When companies are so big that their value is measured in the trillions I think the line between the two is blurry. These companies are managed top down internally after all, so they’re just a smaller “Soviet” situation.

The key difference is corporations are managed top down by competent actors that understand the market, and there's consequence to mismanagement.

What incidents over the past ~2 years, with constant layoffs in the industry, give you the peace of mind that there are in fact, consequences to mismanagement when running big companies?

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#163

Post by Arn_Thor »

zamadatix wrote: post #64
Arn_Thor wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple was an Intel customer. Talking about Apple’s role in the semiconductor sector MUST include Intel because one must explain how and why Apple decided to develop their own (first mobile, then computer) chips in the first place instead of sticking with Intel. Why is Intel not competitive? THAT question seems much more pertinent to America’s chip travails

I don't think chip design conversation, particularly for mobile, really have much to do with the semiconductor production conversation. Sticking with that theme when Apple was doing their own mobile CPUs with ARM Intel's semiconductor fab capabilities were industry leading. I think Intel probably deserves a mention in the article but that line of question feels like the wrong angle of approach for it.

You say Intel’s semiconductor fabbing was leading when Apple started to do their mobile processors on ARM. In wafer tech that is probably true, I don’t know. But clearly Intel wasn’t making power efficient mobile chips. Either because they didn’t have the design capability or didn’t consider the segment worth it. There’s an interesting article in that alone.

My only point is that the story of Intel’s disorganized retreat is at least as relevant as Apple’s march forward

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#164

Post by Arn_Thor »

Jtsummers wrote: post #66
Arn_Thor wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple was an Intel customer. Talking about Apple’s role in the semiconductor sector MUST include Intel because one must explain how and why Apple decided to develop their own (first mobile, then computer) chips in the first place instead of sticking with Intel. Why is Intel not competitive? THAT question seems much more pertinent to America’s chip travails

> one must explain how and why Apple decided to develop their own (first mobile, then computer) chips in the first place instead of sticking with Intel. Re mobile: 1. Timelines. Apple only transitioned to Intel in 2006 on their computer side, the first iPhone was announced in 2006. As a company they had little overall Intel experience. There was no "sticking with Intel" because they'd just switched to Intel concurren…

Right. So the story of how Intel lost the world’s single biggest customer goes as far back as that and raises the question of why the world’s leading, at the time, chip maker couldn’t or wouldn’t make mobile chips.

Also, when Apple switched to ARM for their desktops the core motivation may have been to bring everything in house. But they gained a momentous advantage in the market because the chips they made were so much better than Intel’s. Again, explaining what happened to Intel to make them lag the cutting edge should imo be the key question, not why Apple made a rational business decision (albeit possibly an unethical one. Shareholder capitalism has entered the conversation.).

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#165

Post by baxtr »

ankit219 wrote: post #107

A weird article. Apple was not the first or the only company to look to East Asia for cheap manufacturing, elctronic equipments, chips, or cheap labor. The trend was started and accelerated by motor companies and hardware just followed suit. Then, some other points are just...there. Apple is America's semiconductor problem because Apple is so big it purchases things in bulk and gets discounts - like every other big c…

>It's one thing to assume the most nefarious intent from the start and then look at everything from that lens. It mostly leads to paranoia, not insight.

That’s a marketing tactic that even works on HN I’m afraid. Create an enemy and then tell a story about that nemesis.

Our human storytelling brains need to hear tales of good and evil.

If you want to get an article like that ranking that’s one way to do it. Unfortunately.

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#166

Post by voidfunc »

threeseed wrote: post #161
ankit219 wrote: post #107

A weird article. Apple was not the first or the only company to look to East Asia for cheap manufacturing, elctronic equipments, chips, or cheap labor. The trend was started and accelerated by motor companies and hardware just followed suit. Then, some other points are just...there. Apple is America's semiconductor problem because Apple is so big it purchases things in bulk and gets discounts - like every other big c…

> This is a market failure more than an Apple failure Arguably it's a Microsoft failure more than anything. If they had delivered a version of Windows for ARM capable of seamlessly emulating x86 code with no compromises and released it a decade ago the world would likely be different.

Why would Microsoft build something almost no customers were asking for?

Even now ARM is niche.

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#167

Post by roshankhan28 »

threeseed wrote: post #161
ankit219 wrote: post #107

A weird article. Apple was not the first or the only company to look to East Asia for cheap manufacturing, elctronic equipments, chips, or cheap labor. The trend was started and accelerated by motor companies and hardware just followed suit. Then, some other points are just...there. Apple is America's semiconductor problem because Apple is so big it purchases things in bulk and gets discounts - like every other big c…

> This is a market failure more than an Apple failure Arguably it's a Microsoft failure more than anything. If they had delivered a version of Windows for ARM capable of seamlessly emulating x86 code with no compromises and released it a decade ago the world would likely be different.

i dont really agree with the microsoft failure part, could explain why do you have this point of view? would love to hear it :)

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#168

Post by everettp »

voidfunc wrote: post #166
threeseed wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a market failure more than an Apple failure Arguably it's a Microsoft failure more than anything. If they had delivered a version of Windows for ARM capable of seamlessly emulating x86 code with no compromises and released it a decade ago the world would likely be different.

Why would Microsoft build something almost no customers were asking for? Even now ARM is niche.

What? Per Wikipedia: "With over 230 billion ARM chips produced, as of 2022, ARM is the most widely used family of instruction set architectures."[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#169

Post by teknologist »

voidfunc wrote: post #166
threeseed wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a market failure more than an Apple failure Arguably it's a Microsoft failure more than anything. If they had delivered a version of Windows for ARM capable of seamlessly emulating x86 code with no compromises and released it a decade ago the world would likely be different.

Why would Microsoft build something almost no customers were asking for? Even now ARM is niche.

To show them that their battery life could go from 2.5 hours to 8 or more, perhaps. That was the Mac experience that customers weren't asking for yet "wowed" them when it came.

Re: Apple is America's semiconductor problem

#170

Post by sweetjuly »

Arn_Thor wrote: post #163
zamadatix wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think chip design conversation, particularly for mobile, really have much to do with the semiconductor production conversation. Sticking with that theme when Apple was doing their own mobile CPUs with ARM Intel's semiconductor fab capabilities were industry leading. I think Intel probably deserves a mention in the article but that line of question feels like the wrong angle of approach for it.

You say Intel’s semiconductor fabbing was leading when Apple started to do their mobile processors on ARM. In wafer tech that is probably true, I don’t know. But clearly Intel wasn’t making power efficient mobile chips. Either because they didn’t have the design capability or didn’t consider the segment worth it. There’s an interesting article in that alone. My only point is that the story of Intel’s disorganized ret…

Intel's relationship to power efficiency is really odd. They only started doing heterogenous/big.LITTLE in 2020 despite ARM based SoCs using it for more than a decade to great advantage. It's not as if portable, battery powered devices was a surprising application to Intel, we've had laptops for decades, and so leaving such strong efficiency gains on the table for years is quite confusing.
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