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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

#341

Post by hu3 »

caycep wrote: post #306

the sad part of this is that volume/priority at TSMC shifting from consumer chips that get sold to you and me, to corporate chips which likely will get sold to OpenAI/Amazon/MS or some other corporate datacenter, means that the un-democratization of computing power is well underway.... mirroring, come to think of it, the movement to un-democratize of modern governments... (I would be happier if the news behind Nvidia…

non Apple consumers were already used to this clown fiesta since AMD processors had late access to SoTA nodes for the very same reason.

And possibly other types of hardware also had price bumped or used outdated chips because Apple has to build their iPhone/mac n+1.

That's why you see some folks actually mocking Apple about the situation. They were already affected.

If anything this might force a market-wide fix in the medium term.

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

#343

Post by knowitnone3 »

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…

Sounds like you should just leave the company if you are that unhappy

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

#344

Post by bigyabai »

hu3 wrote: post #341
caycep wrote: post #306

the sad part of this is that volume/priority at TSMC shifting from consumer chips that get sold to you and me, to corporate chips which likely will get sold to OpenAI/Amazon/MS or some other corporate datacenter, means that the un-democratization of computing power is well underway.... mirroring, come to think of it, the movement to un-democratize of modern governments... (I would be happier if the news behind Nvidia…

non Apple consumers were already used to this clown fiesta since AMD processors had late access to SoTA nodes for the very same reason. And possibly other types of hardware also had price bumped or used outdated chips because Apple has to build their iPhone/mac n+1. That's why you see some folks actually mocking Apple about the situation. They were already affected. If anything this might force a market-wide fix in t…

Plus... Apple kinda wastes it. Not to be judgy, but we don't need 2nm chips to hardware-accelerate Netflix and Pornhub. The iPhone is locked-down, there's no worry that it will be a poor gaming platform or disrupt valuable workflows. A new iPhone chip means nothing anymore.

Between the $99/year sideloading, Liquid Glass and fighting fruitlessly against CUDA, I think Apple needs a break to reflect on why their software strategy is so unpopular with everyone. The hardware advances are doing them more harm than good at this point.

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

#345

Post by irishcoffee »

weslleyskah wrote: post #315
jongjong wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe consider patent law? I have a friend who worked for the patent office, and the patent office paid for their law school. Now they’re a patent attorney and doing quite well.

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

#346

Post by paulmist »

827a wrote: post #311
paulmist wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 obv…

> 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.

Definitely! But I'd recon they would want to bootstrap that part of their supply chain as soon as possible? Say China does invade Taiwan, suddenly their main supplier is gone and the Intel capacity mostly goes to military and other high margin segments. If they instead own Intel they not only control the narrative but also capitalize on the increase in Intel's value.

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

#347

Post by weslleyskah »

irishcoffee wrote: post #345
weslleyskah wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe consider patent law? I have a friend who worked for the patent office, and the patent office paid for their law school. Now they’re a patent attorney and doing quite well.

Nice advice. I was also considering something to do with cybercrimes, leveraging the initial degree, but your advice got me thinking!

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

#348

Post by varenc »

wmf wrote: post #190
SoKamil wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Because they are extremely loud, consume 8-10 kW, and probably cost $20K used.

Plenty of home runs all electric heating systems. Running inference on a H100 could be dual-purpose and also heat your home! (albeit less efficient than heat pumps, but identically as efficient as resistive heating)

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

#349

Post by misswaterfairy »

roughly wrote: post #92

This article repeatedly cites revenue growth numbers as an indicator of Nvidia and Apple’s relative health, which is a very particular way of looking at things. By way of another one, Apple had $416Bn in revenue, which was a 6% increase from the prior year, or about $25Bn, or about all of Nvidia’s revenue in 2023. Apple’s had slow growth in the last 4 years following a big bump during the early pandemic; their 5 year…

> Nvidia has indeed grown like a monster in the last couple years - 35Bn increase from 23-24 and 70Bn increase from 24-25.

Worringly for Nvidia, Apple is producing products people want and are provenly useful, thus a vast majority of its value is solid, so revenue streams for fabs Apple uses is solid.

Nvidia on the other hand, is producing tangible things of value, GPUs, but which are now largely used in unproven technologies (when stacked against lofty claims) that barely more than a few seem to want, so Nvidia's revenue stream seems flimsy at best in the AI boom.

The only proven revenue stream Nvidia has (had?) is GPUs for display and visualisation (gaming, graphics, and non-AI non-crypto compute, etc.)

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

#350

Post by MangoCoffee »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #337
MangoCoffee wrote: post #330

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. This is false. Samsung competes with Apple on smartphones. Apple even filed a lawsuit agains…

TSMC holds the real power. Apple’s stability and Nvidia’s cash both matter but AI demand is distorting the entire semiconductor ecosystem. There are no easy exits. Building fabs, switching suppliers or waiting out the cycle all carry massive risk. In the long run, competition (where via Intel, Samsung or geopolitical diversification) is the only path that benefits anyone other than TSMC

Trust comes first. That's why TSMC is a pure play fab. Unless there's something that can 100% guarantee protection for fabless players like Apple, no one will trust Samsung or Intel.

Fabless players' IPs are their entire business.

It'll be hard to trust Intel given Intel's past behavior, especially against AMD.

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