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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

#321

Post by wtallis »

chippiewill wrote: post #316
philistine wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

At the end of the month, laptops with Intel's latest processors will start shipping. These use Intel's 18A process for the CPU chiplet. That makes Intel the first fab to ship a process using backside power delivery. There's no third party testing yet to verify if Intel is still far behind TSMC when power, performance and die size are all considered, but Intel is definitely making progress, and their execs have been promising more for the future, such as their 14A process.

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

#322

Post by sfn42 »

Bombthecat wrote: post #104
Fiveplus wrote: post #6

Calling 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…

I doubt that we will hit diminishing returns in AI. We still find new ways to make them faster or cheaper or better or even train themselves... The flat line prediction is now 2 years old...

You say that, but to me they seem roughly the same as they've been for a good while. Wildly impressive technology, very useful, but also clearly and confidently incorrect a lot. Most of the improvement seems to have come from other avenues - search engine integration, image processing (still blows my mind every time I send a screenshot to a LLM and it gets it) and stuff like that.

Sure maybe they do better in some benchmarks, but to me the experience of using LLMs is and has been limited by their tendency to be confidently incorrect which betrays their illusion of intelligence as well as their usefulness. And I don't really see any clear path to getting past this hurdle, I think this may just be about as good as they're gonna get in that regard. Would be great if they prove me wrong.

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

#323

Post by apercu »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #287
apercu wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Apple is smart. If the AI capex cycle flattens in late '27 as models hit diminishing returns, does Apple regain pricing power simply by being the only customer that can guarantee wafer commits five years out?" That's the take I would pursue if I were Apple. A quiet threat of "We buy wafers on consumer demand curves. You’re selling them on venture capital and hype"

Why should that change TSMC decision making even a little? The reality is that TSMC has no competition capable of shipping an equivalent product. If AI fizzles out completely, the only way Apple can choose to not use TSMC is if they decide to ship an inferior product. A world where TSMC drains all the venture capital out of all the AI startups, using NVidia as an intermediary, and then all the bubble pops and they al…

Because apple can play hard(er) ball in 12 or 18 or 24 months when this (likely) irrational spend spree dies?

Business is a little more nuanced than this audience thinks, and it’s silly to think Apple has no leverage.

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

#324

Post by maxglute »

Antibabelic wrote: post #185
tim-tday wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The leader of China literally publicly told his military to have “all options for reunification of Taiwan ready by 2027” What options do you suppose the military might be working on? Training to surround, and blockade? (Check) Information warfare? (Check) Building high numbers of landing craft? (Check) Building high numbers of modular weapon systems that can rapidly increase the number of offensive ships? (Check) Bui…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China's_final_warning

This retarded meme gets posted about PRC bluffing but context behind it illustrates the opposite. The warnings were against US/TW based U2s overflights, which PRC was both warning and doing - actively attempting to shoot down despite having inferior capabilities. The chefs kiss that this is an USSR meme is that PRC shot down more U2s using modified soviet hardware than USSR herself. Even more so when consider PRC issued actual final warning to USSR that ended up in border skirmishes. PRC's actual final warning is "don't say we didn't warn you" which historically predicts PRC kinetic action with high certainty. USSR, India border skirmishes. Korean war against UN. PRC also has directly supported North Vietnam against the French, and threatened UK when they hinted at granting HK independence under Thatcher. That's every NPT nuclear state over territorial / security issues less important than TW. It doesn't always lead to immediate action, but has consistently been prelude to it.

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

#325

Post by strangegecko »

tim-tday wrote: post #69

Sneak 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.

There is no "promise".

The 2027 date was a guideline for their military to be "ready", which they may not be either. That is a far cry from the decision to actually make a move. They will only do that if they're certain it will work out for them, and as things stand, it is very risky for Xi.

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

#326

Post by nialv7 »

Fiveplus wrote: post #6

Calling 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…

> the smartphone replacement cycle is the only predictable cash flow

people are holding onto their phones for longer: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/23/how-device-hoarding-by-ameri...

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

#327

Post by to11mtm »

nialv7 wrote: post #326
Fiveplus wrote: post #6

Calling 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…

> the smartphone replacement cycle is the only predictable cash flow people are holding onto their phones for longer: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/23/how-device-hoarding-by-ameri...

Still more predictable than GPU buys in the current climate. Power connector melting aside, GPUs in most cases get replaced less frequently than cell phones, unless of course you have lots of capital/profit infusion to for whatever reason stay ahead of the game.

Heck if Apple wanted to be super cheeky, they could probably still pivot on the reserved capacity to do something useful (e.x. revised older design for whatever node they reserved where they can get more chips/wafer for cheaper models.)

NVDA on the other hand is burning a lot of good-will in their consumer space, and if a competitor somehow is able to outdo them it could be catastrophic.

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

#328

Post by DetroitThrow »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #246
DetroitThrow wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Closer to $40b for a new fab for an established company to do it all correctly. It's a much more major investment to open a fab without ever doing it before, then continually use the brain power/institutional knowledge you've built up to stay near the forefront of fab tech, and then basically have weird incentives to build a foundry for only your products rather than the world at large. You're setting yourself up for…

Is that true? I guess what I mean is, is it $40B if you are trying to replicate the scale of a TSMC fab? Or could you do it for considerably less if the fab is initially designed to the needs of single customer (Apple)?

Closer to $40B for some of the latest fabs from TSMC you're seeing, yes. While there could be huge simplification in SoC and packaging processes if it was focused on a single product, Apple's needs will likely still be about having cutting edge processors, so it would still be pretty high even if they were to just buy TSMC.

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

#329

Post by internet2000 »

anoojb wrote: post #138
Fiveplus wrote: post #6

Calling 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…

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…

Costco does not treat their suppliers well.

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

#330

Post by MangoCoffee »

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…

>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.

This is false. Samsung competes with Apple on smartphones. Apple even filed a lawsuit against Samsung over smartphones.

Apple moved to TSMC because how can you trust someone to make chips for you containing your phone's core IP?

>I could totally see Apple turning to Intel for the Mac chips

I could totally see Apple will be wary turning their core IPs to Intel

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