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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

#311

Post by 827a »

paulmist wrote: post #245
827a wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also bet significant money that Apple's unique market position will give them the confidence to invest in in-house fabrication before 2030.

Would it be feasible for them to buy Intel instead? Starting your own foundry would likely take over a decade.

Yup; or potentially just purchasing a fab from them, given that Intel has signaled they want to leverage TSMC more, and much of Intel's remaining value is wrapped up in server-grade chips that Apple wouldn't be interested in.

But also; Apple is one of the very few companies at their size that seems to have the political environment to make, and more importantly succeed, at decade investments. The iPhone wasn't an obvious success for 5 or 6 years. They started designing their own iPhone chips ~the iPhone 4 iirc, and pundits remarked: this isn't a good idea; today, the M5 in the iPad Pro outperforms every chip made by EVERYONE else in the world, by 25%, at a tenth the power draw and no active cooling (e.g. 9950X3D). Apple Maps (enough said). We're seeing similar investments today, things we could call "failures" that in 10 years we'll think were obviously going to be successful (cough vision pro).

Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage

#312

Post by NonHyloMorph »

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #243
NonHyloMorph wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Our system produces 4X more power that enables better lithographic patterning, which is necessary to manufacture chips with smaller and more efficient feature sizes. In addition to being more powerful, our FEL system has programmable light characteristics that improve current capabilities and enable next-generation lithography (e.g., shorter wavelengths) - uniquely enabling the extension of Moore’s Law for decades.…

There's Canon with nanoimprint [1] and Rapidus [2] may be working on something [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoimprint-lithography [2] https://www.rapidus.inc/en/

Thank you, Rapidus is what I was looking for!

Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage

#313

Post by [deleted] »

sellmesoap wrote: post #310
anoojb wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let's say TMSC reciprocated Apple's consistency as a customer by giving them preferential treatment for capacity. It's good business after all. However, everyone knows that good faith reciprocity at that scale is not rewarded. Apple is ruthless. There are probably thousands of untold stories of how hard Apple has hammered it's suppliers over the years. While Apple has good consumer brand loyalty, they arguably tre…

About 17 years ago I worked at a company that was clamoring to get products into Costco, when we did I was shocked at the fees they charged us for returns. If they're the gold standard for supplier relations it's a wonder anyone bothers being a supplier.

[deleted]

Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage

#314

Post by bpodgursky »

erxam wrote: post #290
bpodgursky wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that China can sustain a naval blockade of Taiwan nearly indefinitely, and at some point Taiwan will have to decide whether they want to live under siege forever (poor, cold, getting everything via scarce and expensive air freight), or give up come to a political solution. I'm not like, rooting for this, I'm just trying to be realistic.

That's exactly what the USA has been doing to Cuba since 1959 and they're still (barely) hanging around. If we go by that example, it'll only end with with an actual invasion (which is what will happen to Cuba within one to two years).

It's not even slightly the same?

The US has an embargo that doesn't impact other countries that want to trade with Cuba. China is going to put an actual cordon around Taiwan.

Also, the US has no historical reason for claiming Cuba and has no real domestic pressure to do so (nobody in either party is asking for it). China has been very clear they see Taiwan as a part of China and will reunite with it not for economic or strategic reasons, but for nationalistic ones.

Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage

#315

Post by weslleyskah »

jongjong wrote: post #309
weslleyskah wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you are maybe joking but I don't think the government nationalizing the tech sector would be a good idea. They can pull down the salaries even more if they want. It can become a dead end job with you stuck on archaic technology from older systems. Government jobs should only be an option if there are enough social benefits.

I'm joking yes but as an engineer who has seen the bureaucracy in most big tech companies, the joke is getting less funny over time. I've met many software engineers who call themselves communists. I can kind of understand. This kind of communist-like bureaucracy doesn't work well in a capitalist environment. It's painful to work in tech. It's like our hands are tied and are forced to do things in a way we know is in…

I understand completely.

I'm going through a computer engineering degree at the moment, but I am thinking about pursuing Law later on.

Looking at other paths: Medicine requires expensive schooling and isn't really an option after a certain age and law, on the other hand, opened its doors too widely and now has a large underclass of people with third-tier law degrees.

Perhaps you can try to accept the realities of the system while trying to live the best life that you can?

Psyching yourself all the way, trying to find some sort of escape towards a good life with freedom later on...

Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage

#316

Post by chippiewill »

philistine wrote: post #265
Aurornis wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this scale and volume, it's not really about good faith. Changing fabs is non-trivial. If they pushed Apple to a point where they had to find an alternative (which is another story) and Apple did switch, they would have to work extra hard to get them back in the future. Apple wouldn't want to invest twice in changing back and forth. On the other hand, TSMC knows that changing fabs is not really an option and Apple…

Apple has used both Samsung and TSMC for its chips in the past. Until the A7 it was Samsung, A8 was TSMC, and the A9 was dual-sourced by both! Apple is used to switching between suppliers fairly often for a tech company; it's not that it's too hard for them to switch fab, it's that TSMC is the only competitive fab right now. There are rumours that Intel might have won some business from them in 2 years. I could total…

I thought Intel was too far behind on their process nodes?

Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage

#317

Post by avadodin »

neuroelectron wrote: post #212
flenserboy wrote: post #176

Of course they did stock buybacks instead of using their mountains of cash to lock out the competition or keeping their powder in reserve. Brilliant!

Pepperidge Farm remembers when stock buy backs were illegal stock manipulation

Stock buy-backs can be part of an illegal scheme but, in general, they are one of the few mechanisms in corporate actions through which the regular joe shareholder doesn't get the short end of the stick.

How is owning a larger share of a company with proportionally less cash and a higher price per share than what you could have sold it for before bad.

Have you looked at precious metal charts as of late? Do 1/x and that's the value of the cash these companies are trading for a valuable business.

Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage

#319

Post by toasterlovin »

bigyabai wrote: post #286
toasterlovin wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> several high-margin customers This is the "venture capital and hype" being referred to, not Nvidia themselves.

But Nvidia has had high-profile industry partners for decades. Nintendo isn't "venture capital and hype" nor is PC gaming and HPC datacenter workloads. That line is purified cope.

But Nvidia wasn't able to compete with Apple for capacity on new process nodes with Nintendo volumes (the concept is laughable; compare Apple device unit volumes to game console unit volumes). What has changed in the semiconductor industry is overwhelming demand for AI focused GPUs, and that is paid for largely with speculative VC money (at this point, at least; AI companies are starting to figure out monetization).

Re: Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage

#320

Post by touisteur »

atq2119 wrote: post #106
alex43578 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Datacenter GPU dies cannot be binned for Geforce because they lack fixed function graphics features. Raytracing acceleration in particular must be non-trivial area that you wouldn't want to spend on a datacenter die. Not to mention the data fabric is probably pretty different.

The A40, L40S and Blackwell 6000 Pro Server have RT cores. 3 datacenter GPUs.

If you want binning in action, the RTX ones other than the top ones, are it. Look for the A30 too, of which I was surprised there was no successor. Either they had better yields on Hopper or they didn't get enough from the A30...

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