Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

macrumors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 225 posts

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#91

Post by Workaccount2 »

dralley wrote: post #71
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't USA in the process of basically relocating TSMC to Arizona for that reason? And it's not for iPhones. It's because USA military can't risk having the chip supply cut off in wartime.

No. What you're missing is that the fabs moving to the US are pretty much just the ones the US military might need. TSMC isn't moving their cutting edge production here. The fabs will be a node or two behind.

Which is why there is a lot of pressure on Intel to pull off their new EUV-2 fabs.

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#92

Post by taylodl »

michaelsshaw wrote: post #79
iknowstuff wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha yes compiling a kernel should be the focus. Forget all the advancements in instant computational photography, on-device voice recognition and Siri, 4K HDR 60fps stabilized videos, 120Hz retina screens running perfectly smooth animations on an all day lasting battery, because neckbeards can't compile a kernel

Using faster computer chips to make faster computers, rather than Apple products, should be the focus, yes.

Apple's phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop products are computers. And they're making them faster, apparently. I would argue the phone is where the focus should be since that's the primary computer for many people around the world.

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#94

Post by hardware2win »

iknowstuff wrote: post #56
michaelsshaw wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How improved though? iPhones are already pretty fast. I don't know about you, but i've never compiled a kernel on my phone. Having a faster, actual workstation grade computer would be better. But yeah you're right, sarcasm is the right approach.

Haha yes compiling a kernel should be the focus. Forget all the advancements in instant computational photography, on-device voice recognition and Siri, 4K HDR 60fps stabilized videos, 120Hz retina screens running perfectly smooth animations on an all day lasting battery, because neckbeards can't compile a kernel

Whats the difference between taking photos/videos on a phone from 2018 and cutting edge?

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#95

Post by NelsonMinar »

It's astonishing how TSMC is the only company in the world that can do this. They are just so far ahead of everyone else in manufacturing. It'd sure be nice to have more capacity.

The Economist had a good article a few months ago about the volume of chip manufacture by country and process size. The takeaway is Taiwan leads 22nm is an interesting mix including South Korea and China.

Chart: https://www.economist.com/img/b/400/834/90/media-assets/imag...

Article: https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/02/02/americas-hoped-for...

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#96

Post by Maursault »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #61
ftxbro wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like the local-LLM enthusiasts will want to use Apple computers. This is funny to me for some reason, like if the most cost-effective work boot of 2025 is produced by Gucci.

I'm not aware of any local-LLM framework that works with Apple GPUs?

Does this qualify?[1]

[1] https://www.infoq.com/news/2023/05/mlc-llm-mobile-laptops/

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#97

Post by braymundo »

heliophobicdude wrote: post #77
braymundo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish gaming on Mac became more popular due to the same reason.

What are some broken-down reasons why gaming on Mac didn't take off. I'm sure it's a few different reasons all together

I don't know, but if I had to guess it would that Apple was never really interested in it or in supporting it. I fondly remember some companies (like Blizzard) who would always support Macs, until they stopped (looking at you, Diablo 4).

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#98

Post by ytch »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #67
apozem wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. TSMC can spend tens of billions of dollars on new processes because they know Apple will be there day 1 to use it all. The iPhone and Mac have good performance and power efficiency, but people will always want their phone and laptop to do more and get longer battery life. Apple customers’ appetite for compute is practically bottomless.

> Apple customers’ appetite for compute is practically bottomless. I don't think so, the typical iPhone user has not scaled up their compute needs much past the 2015 A9. And if you exclude the computational photography stuff, I could imagine some users don't take advantage of it at all.

It's just my (unprofessional) assumption, but besides CPU and GPU, maybe NPU (AI) still have room for improvement.

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#99

Post by hammock »

inkyoto wrote: post #90
MichaelZuo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that's including things like high liquidity investments and so on, so not quite cash.

I am not going to bet my life on it, but as per [0] the definition of the «[cash] reserve» is: «In financial accounting, reserve always has a credit balance and can refer to a part of shareholders' equity, a liability for estimated claims, or contra-asset for uncollectible accounts». So it refers to a credit balance, and it does not mention investments. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_(accounting)

The term "cash reserves" is not a standard accounting term or classification. "Cash reserves" is commonly used to refer to funds set aside by a company or organization for specific purposes, such as contingencies, future investments, or working capital needs. These reserves are typically considered as part of a company's cash and cash equivalents.

Under GAAP, cash (and cash equivalents) includes currency on hand, deposits in bank accounts, and any highly liquid investments that have an original maturity of three months or less. Cash equivalents are short-term investments that are readily convertible to known amounts of cash and have original maturities of three months or less from the date of purchase

Re: Apple to occupy 90% of TSMC 3nm capacity in 2023

#100

Post by mikeyouse »

inkyoto wrote: post #90
MichaelZuo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that's including things like high liquidity investments and so on, so not quite cash.

I am not going to bet my life on it, but as per [0] the definition of the «[cash] reserve» is: «In financial accounting, reserve always has a credit balance and can refer to a part of shareholders' equity, a liability for estimated claims, or contra-asset for uncollectible accounts». So it refers to a credit balance, and it does not mention investments. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_(accounting)

That's a slightly different thing - a reserve account is what you've correctly linked, but what people here are talking about is just a basic balance sheet categories of cash and marketable securities;

https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000320193/386e8c0...

So they have $25 billion in cash/cash equivalents (T-bills), $31 billion in "Current Marketable Securities" which are just those that are liquid this year so short-term debt and the like, and then $110 billion in long-term marketable securities which can be medium term bonds and other investments on a >1 year timeline.

Add those up and you get to $166 billion which is a good proxy for the amount of money they can invest today.

Post reply on HN