alt Hacker News> but they need to have a negotiating position with their single point of failure supplier
They don't. Apple has an Architecture License for ARM, they can do whatever the fuck they want.
If you're referring to TSMC - it shouldn't be too much of a problem for Apple to go and contract Samsung instead, at least assuming Samsung can keep up the yield. Intel isn't a competitor to either TSMC or Samsung, their fab process is years behind.
Replies
> Intel isn't a competitor to either TSMC or Samsung, their fab process is years behind.
It's certainly in Apple (and every company that requires a leading-edge fab)'s interest to try and keep Intel competitive with TSMC and Samsung. 3 companies is already too few for a truly competitive market. And 2 is worse.
I'd argue it's also in everyone's interest to have some redundancy in the chip fabrication supply chain (esp. given the geopolitical situation in Taiwan). It would already be catastrophic if TSMC's production was disrupted for any reason. It would be even more catastrophic if there was no Intel.
Intel’s 18A is closer to availability (functional, ramping to production) than Samsung’s SF2 (still in dev/testing phase); which is roughly analogous to TSMC N2.
TSMC is ahead, as usual, but Intel is closer than Samsung (in this specific case).
Strictly speaking, Samsung currently has no analogous product to 18A or TSMC 2nm.
> Intel isn't a competitor to either TSMC or Samsung, their fab process is years behind.
Is it? I've read that Intel's newest process is closer to TSMC N3 than N2, but surely it's not years behind Samsung? I think the biggest problem for Intel right now is acquiring customers and learning how to work with them (but the new CEO should be the right person to do that).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_nm_process#3_nm_process_node...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_nm_process#2_nm_process_node...