Apple is fighting for TSMC capacity as Nvidia takes center stage • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by paulryanrogers » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:02 AM UTC

indymike wrote: post #91

ndr42 wrote: post #16

I dislike this dramatization in reporting of mundane facts. So report the facts but sentences like "What Wei probably didn’t tell Cook is that Apple may no longer be his largest client" make it personal, they make you take sides, feel sorry for somebody, feel schadenfreude... (as you can observe in the comments)

Clickbait permeates all things. Next thing you know they'll be adding ____ (insert favorite controversial world leader) enraged to the headline.

Or perhaps insert favorite controversial world leader will insert themselves into the real facts of the story behind the title

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

#352

Post by kalleboo » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:04 AM UTC

MangoCoffee wrote: post #330

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…

>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…

Then why are they switching from Sony to Samsung for custom camera sensors for the next iPhone?

Why do they keep using Samsung for their customized screens despite LG and Chinese competitors being competitive?

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

#353

Post by SecretDreams » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:06 AM UTC

nonethewiser wrote: post #282

SecretDreams wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is actually a big reason why TSMC is the king of fabs today. They were a reliable cash source for years before TSMC was even ahead of Intel. Apple can and should do it again!

Fabs are in kind of a catch 22. They need big business to improve and to get lots of business they need to be competitive. Im mostly familiar with that narrative in terms of Intel's current uphill battle - was it really the same for TSMC? I guess maybe there was a similar dynamic except the playing field was more even at that time, so it was a bit less of a catch 22.

Yes, it was. Intel was well ahead of TSMC for quite some time. But TSMC had a diversified and hungry list of clients, with Apple at the forefront. Apple got the taste for wanting their own chips which pushed TSMC to be hungrier. Meanwhile, Intel got fat and complacent. It also helped that phone chips were considerably smaller, so managing yields was easier.

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

#354

Post by npunt » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:06 AM UTC

MangoCoffee wrote: post #330

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…

>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…

wait til you find out who supplies iPhone screens.

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

#355

Post by wtetzner » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:08 AM UTC

thewebguyd wrote: post #289

lukan wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But wasn't the reason they split with Samsung because they copied the iphone in the perspective of Jobs (to which he reacted with thermonuclear threats)? They did had the expertise building it after all. What would happen, if TSMC now would build a M1 clone? I doubt this is a way anyone wants to go, but it seems a implied threat to me that is calculated in.

Job's thermonuclear threats were about Android & Google, not Samsung because Schmidt was on Apple's board during the development of Android. > "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this." The falling out with Samsung was re…

> because it’s a stolen product

This is funny coming from Jobs.

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

#356

Post by kshacker » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:23 AM UTC

zvorygin wrote: post #252

_the_inflator wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. People confuse relative for absolute numbers. And ironically Apple acts like being a small contender the moment they feel some heat after a decade of relatively easy wins everywhere it seemed. So finally there is a company that gives Apple some much needed heat. That’s why I in absolute terms side with NVIDIA, the small contender in this case. PS: I had one key moment in my career when I was at Google and a…

How did you get into large scale manufacturing and production? Was it a career switch? Downsides? It too fascinates me. Any book recommendations?

I think the parent comment said "mental journey", not a real one, although it will be good to get more insights.

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

#357

Post by marcus_holmes » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:28 AM UTC

lovich wrote: post #335

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…

Bruh, with some very rare exceptions like valve, every company is run as a dictatorship or oligarchy. That goes beyond tech, hell big tech at least gives some agency to their engineers. The only way you don’t need to be versed in compliance or group think at a US firm as an employee is to either be 1) independently wealthy, so your job is a hobby you can walk away from 2) have some leverage on a currently in demand s…

Find a small company with a founder who loves their team and wants them to be happy. They exist, I assure you. They're not even rare.

I spent most of my career working in companies with Small companies won't pay FAANG salaries, but they also won't make you feel like a meaningless cog in a vast unsympathetic, unproductive, machine.

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

#358

Post by shuckles » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:29 AM UTC

zvorygin wrote: post #252

_the_inflator wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. People confuse relative for absolute numbers. And ironically Apple acts like being a small contender the moment they feel some heat after a decade of relatively easy wins everywhere it seemed. So finally there is a company that gives Apple some much needed heat. That’s why I in absolute terms side with NVIDIA, the small contender in this case. PS: I had one key moment in my career when I was at Google and a…

How did you get into large scale manufacturing and production? Was it a career switch? Downsides? It too fascinates me. Any book recommendations?

It’s also strange because I highly doubt Google has manufactured a billion physical units of anything. Most of their consumer hardware is designed and built by partners, including Pixel.

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

#359

Post by marcus_holmes » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:37 AM UTC

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…

Because shares are no longer about investing in a company that is making healthy margins and has a solid business, that will pay you a decent dividend in return for your investment.

Shares are a short-term speculative gamble; you buy them in the hope that the price will rise and then you can sell them for a profit. Sometimes the gap between these two events is measured in milliseconds.

So the only thing that matters to Wall St is growth. If the company is growing then its price will probably rise. If it's not, it won't. Current size is unimportant. Current earnings are unimportant (unless they are used to fund growth). Nvidia is sexy, Apple is not, despite all the things you say (which are true).

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

#360

Post by thfuran » Fri, Jan 16, 2026, 1:53 AM UTC

philistine wrote: post #266

boringg wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter argument is that is NVIDIA friendly to their supply chain? I have to think that maybe they are with their massive margins because they can be - their end buyer is currently willing to absorb costs at no expense. But I don't know, and that will change as their business changes. Your underlying statement implies that whoever is replacing apple is a better buyer which I don't think is necessarily true.

Nvidia is famously a pain to work with. Apple vowed never to use their chips, Microsoft and Sony can't get them to make any GPU for their consoles. The only complete package integrator that manages to make a relationship work with Nvidia is Nintendo.

EVGA outright gave up on selling GPUs rather than continue working with NVidia.