alt Hacker NewsApple 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 totally see Apple turning to Intel for the Mac chips, since they're much lower volume. I know it sounds crazy, we just got rid of Intel, but I'm talking using Intel as a fab, not going back to x86. Those are done.
Replies
>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 against Samsung over smartphones.
Apple moved to TSMC because how can you trust someone to make chips for you containing your phone's core IP?
>I could totally see Apple turning to Intel for the Mac chips
I could totally see Apple will be wary turning their core IPs to Intel
I thought Intel was too far behind on their process nodes?
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.