Apple May Shift CPU Manufacturing From Samsung to TSMC

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This is media spin on trying to make it look like something Apple chose to do. When in fact, the contract Apple had with Samsung is about to expire, and Samsung has given Apple the middle finger.

In related news : TSMC denied Apple a contact that would allow them exclusive use of the full production capacity of their fab's. Because of this Apple is now stuck between a rock and a hard place as they pissed off Samsung, and TSMC cannot meet their demands without turning away other customers, which they are unwilling to do at this time.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-29/apple-qualcomm-spurned-in-bids-for-exclusive-tsmc-chip-supply.html
 
Um "TSMC denied Apple a contact that would allow them exclusive use of the full production capacity of their fab's" why the fuck would apple want this, TSMC are very very busy and apple a a small pool of the TOTAl production of ARMS processors, of vourse they said "FUCK OFF APPLE" why would they dedicate 100% to apple and nothing to qualcomm and TI (qualcomm chip is better than a6 anyway).
Apple really could be in trouble global foundrys wont touch the ARM race right now, they have issues at 28nm and below, TMSc also makes x86 pricessors at tye same FAB.
 
TSMC didn't even have enough capacity to make nVidia's chips for the GTX 680. Who does Apple think they are, any way? Hope that 1 billion dollar settlement was worth it
 
With both Nvidias and AMD's trouble to get sufficient quantity's i will laugh if apple are so stupid. With the iSheep heard i'm sure there will be news of people dying in the lines waiting for a phone there are no chips for, its a sad breed!
 
I would consider if Samsung decided to stop selling anything to Apple.

selling 149 million iPhones and close to 60 million iPads
Click to expand...
A pcmag article I can link to claims Apple generates $650 in revenue per iPhone. That means a month's delay in production costs a little over 8 billion dollars. And this doesn't include revenue from the iPad.

That's a lot more than a mere billion.

Not to mention if there is a decrease in quality or a decrease in supply due to sourcing problems, which might even tarnish the brand.

I don't know how Apple always acts like an arrogant litigious cry baby and people think the brand represents cool laid back people.
 
[citation][nom]A Bad Day[/nom]Apple! You should open your own plants if you're so happy with angering your supplier and not being able to find a replacement![/citation]

Apple definitely should open their own plants. Open them in the USA. Create some American jobs.

Will they? I doubt it.... ;o)
 
[citation][nom]spectrewind[/nom]Apple definitely should open their own plants. Open them in the USA. Create some American jobs.Will they? I doubt it.... ;o)[/citation]
If they did that it might even begin to make sense why their products cost ludicrously more than other comparable products. Their profit margins would more than allow this, and their cash reserves would too. I would actually maybe start to respect Apple if they did this, but I would still never buy one of their products.
 
[citation][nom]A Bad Day[/nom]Apple! You should open your own plants if you're so happy with angering your supplier and not being able to find a replacement![/citation]

semiconductor fabrication is no easy task. All of the major manufacturers have been in business for between 25 and 50 years. Electrical engineering is outside of Apple's core competency. This is part of the reason that they only adopt proven technologies. Seeing as they can't even get the app store to work properly without screwing stuff up I doubt that they're itching to try their hand at fabrication.
 
To be honest, even tough i really hope Samsung gives the middle finger to Apple and doesn't renew the contract, leaving Apple hanged to dry with not enough chip production to satisfy the iPhone demand, i doubt they would do so.

Why? Because of hard, cold numbers. Samsung earns a ton of money off the semiconductor business, and the iPhone sales are an important part of those numbers. Samsung probably stands to lose more than they would gain if they dumped Apple.
 
[citation][nom]pinhedd[/nom]semiconductor fabrication is no easy task. All of the major manufacturers have been in business for between 25 and 50 years. Electrical engineering is outside of Apple's core competency. This is part of the reason that they only adopt proven technologies. Seeing as they can't even get the app store to work properly without screwing stuff up I doubt that they're itching to try their hand at fabrication.[/citation]

Perhaps they should have seen that before the Samsung lawsuit. Apple, just another myopic company... But, money talks, and everything has a price, and Apple has the money to pay. This could get interesting. Their cash reserves will cause them to linger on and keep making the news. But... being a fab-less company will hurt them. Just as companies like nVidia learn, so will Apple, hopefully.
 
[citation][nom]Vorador2[/nom]To be honest, even tough i really hope Samsung gives the middle finger to Apple and doesn't renew the contract, leaving Apple hanged to dry with not enough chip production to satisfy the iPhone demand, i doubt they would do so.Why? Because of hard, cold numbers. Samsung earns a ton of money off the semiconductor business, and the iPhone sales are an important part of those numbers. Samsung probably stands to lose more than they would gain if they dumped Apple.[/citation]


I would think that the risk analysis would need to show that Samsung would need to be able to show that the money made by continuing to build for Apple would make up for any losses from the lawsuit.
 
Apple and Samsung maybe enemies but Samsug isn't stupid. They are not gonna turn down several billion dollars in business with apple over a billion dollar judgment. At most Samsung will try to raise the price of business at which point apple may turn to Intel for joint factory. The TSMC and Samsung will be lost.
 
[citation][nom]spectrewind[/nom]Perhaps they should have seen that before the Samsung lawsuit. Apple, just another myopic company... But, money talks, and everything has a price, and Apple has the money to pay. This could get interesting. Their cash reserves will cause them to linger on and keep making the news. But... being a fab-less company will hurt them. Just as companies like nVidia learn, so will Apple, hopefully.[/citation]

Yup. Don't bite the hand that feeds. The only tech company in the world which can -- without recourse -- say "hehehehehhe fak u!" is Intel. Intel is vertically integrated and has the software, OEM, and retail markets eating out of the palm of their hand. Not even IBM could get away with that.

If Samsung tells Apple to EABOD then that means that Apple will have to spend the time not only finding a new supplier but also negotiating a contact, settling licensing issues (there's no telling if Samsung has any stake in the Ax series SoCs), spinning up their other fabs (it's not an overnight process) and handling the much more complicated logistics. Combine this with the impending LTE lawsuits from HTC and Samsung and the iPhone 5 could be in for a bit of a rocky ride.
 
Samsung can make processors cheaply and efficiently. Main reason to use Samsung but if Samsung is gonna play games and force Apple to go to court then it would make sense to use other players in the processor market if or when things become more soar with Samsung. I just wish there were more US based companies to use but Asia based manufacturers are very difficult to compete price wise.
 


Samsung does make it's own phones that are better selling than Apple's. Worse comes to worse, Samsung populates it's own fabs, with it's own products and cuts out the middleman. They become as vertically integrated as Intel.
 
Samsung : Okay Apple, our contract is almost over and here is the new one. We have raised prices to today's market standards. Oh, and the billion dollar you took from us.

Apple : Screw you Samsung, you aren't the only company that can make hardware.
*Runs over to TSMC*
Hey guys, can you make the hardware for our phones?

TSMC : Dude, we are already using 90% of our production line for other companies. You can't expect us to print out over 25 million processors in a month time.

Apple's marketing team : Okay we just been dumped by Samsung and there is no company that can reach the numbers we need in the quality we need them at.. what should our headlines be?

"Apple dumps Samsung."

Apple : Good! Now we don't look like the failures.
 
This article is absolute rubbish: It IS common knowledge around the technology world that Apple is planning on dropping Samsung as their FAB for the Ax chip but here are a list of problems with the article:

First of all: the A4, A5, A6, A7 ... are NOT CPUs, they are SoCs. There is a significant difference as a SoC contains ALL the things required to make the device work (CPU, GPU, memory controllers, etc) not just processing cores. This is not like an Intel processor that only has CPU cores (even Intel CPUs are also moving more towards the SoC class).

Secondly: Apple looking to move to TSMC's 16nm FinFET process? REALLY? TSMC's 16nm process won't be ready for over 2 - 3 years, longer if Apple is requiring 130million + units each year. The smallest size that Apple will be getting TSMC to make for them at first will be 20nm, and I wouldn't be surprized if Apple's first chip at TSMC will be 28nm!

Thirdly: You CANNOT compare the A6 (and future A7) processor to the memory chips. Apple buys the memory chips from companies like Samsung, Hynix and Micron as a premade DDR2 product. They have to conform to the DDR2 standard so no extra modification is needed to drop a Hynix product in place of a Samsung product. Custom made CPUs require millions to convert a design into a production ready product, and since FAB company has a slightly different process (SAMSUNG using GATE First, TSMC GATE Last) it takes months and lots of money to switch between manufacturers. So there is not point in comparing Memory to CPU production.

Lastly and most importantly: This is OLD news. TSMC reported that Apple (and Qualcomm in an unrelated event) offered 1 Billion USD for guaranteed FAB space. This is just crappy journalism to capitalize on the new Apple Iphone hype (which isn't that big as the phone is (again) a disappointment!)

Tom's should fire these lazy, useless Journalists!
 
[citation][nom]egilbe[/nom]TSMC didn't even have enough capacity to make nVidia's chips for the GTX 680.[/citation]You're confusing capacity with quantity of functional GK104 chips good enough for the 680. In other words, you're forgetting yield, which for the GK104 was piss poor. As a result, the launch of the 680 was almost a paper launch. There were so few of them available, that even at sky-high prices (plus some vendor gouging in some cases) they still had major shortages.
 
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