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redwoodtoday at 6:37 PM2 repliesview on HN

Fabless. Like AMD and Nvidia. So I would think about it more as branding and packaging than Manufacturing


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anvuongtoday at 6:57 PM

Huh, many companies use TSMC, in fact, probably all of them use TSMC, including Intel, yet there are only a few who dominates in performance. There are much more in designing chips than what you just listed.

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IshKebabtoday at 7:04 PM

There's a big difference between just providing IP and actually doing the physical design, manufacturing and packaging. You can't just send your RTL to TSMC and magically get packaged chips back.

I haven't ever ordered an ARM SoC but I also wouldn't be surprised if there were significant parts that they left up to integrators before - PLLs, pads, SRAM etc.