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Apple does research, design and software but all the manufacturing and assembly is done in China by Chinese companies. Mostly Samsung and Foxconn. Nvidia is t

Apple does research, design and software but all the manufacturing and assembly is done in China by Chinese companies. Mostly Samsung and Foxconn. Nvidia is the same but the chips are fabbed by TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor).

bruckie 6y ago
Samsung is Korean.
simonh 6y ago
Very few iPhone components are actually manufactured in China even now, it's just where all the parts are assembled, but the value contribution of assembly is only a few dollars per device[0]. Back in the day as much as about 40% of the components by value were manufactured in the USA, including the early Samsung CPUs made in a fab in Texas, and Gorilla Glass made by Corning in New York state. That was actually the case at the height of the furore about iPhones being made in China around 2010-2012, although few commentators bothered finding that out. Nowadays the countries of origin are more diverse, and the proportion made in the USA has fallen. The biggest single change though was moving from US made Samsung CPUs to TSMC chips from Taiwan. I believe some of the more sophisticated assembly and QA test equipment is US made, or at least used to be but can't find a reference for that online. [0]https://www.lifewire.com/where-is-the-iphone-made-1999503 https://www.lifewire.com/where-is-the-iphone-made-1999503
- tooltalk 6y ago
  China accounts for only about 5% of global semi sales, according to SIAC's 2019 annual report. The US still dominates in logic and analog sub-product categories by a wide margin. > Back in the day as much as about 40%... 40% sounds too high -- I think 18% at max is more realistic. Apple's A chip cost was estimated between $12-$20 or about 7%-8% of total BOM. Aside from Apple's A chips fabbed by Samsung and baseband/RF/sensors by Qualcomm/Skyworks, I can't think of any other significant US components in Apple's mobile product. The most valuable components in the iPhones in those days were DRAM/NAND flash storage (about 30% of BOM) and displays and they came from either Japan or South Korea. Micron wasn't an significant supplier until Apple's relationship with Samsung soured. Sure, who can forget Tim Apple's rare CBS interview where he proudly declared the engines of their portable devices were made in the US, after which Apple promptly outsourced it to TSMC in Taiwan. I suspect that that was a calculated move to make the final defense of their outsourcing practices before moving that out of the US as well.
Open-Sourcery 6y ago
Ahh yes, Foxconn and Samsung, two famous Chinese companies...
- dba7dba 6y ago
  Foxconn = Taiwan Samsung = South Korea
  - djmips 6y ago
    You missed the sarcasm. Replied to help you build your sarcasm filter.
agumonkey 6y ago
Someone did remind us that TSMC relies on dutch machines for wafer productions. It's not china-skills-black-hole as one could think (I used to)
- iagovar 6y ago
  If you trust the EU to prevent ASML end up in chinese hands, then you're trusting too much.
  - yvdriess 6y ago
    ASML is already banned by the Netherlands government to deal with China.
- conradev 6y ago
  also, the first T in TSMC stands for Taiwan, which is not China
  - renw0rp 6y ago
    Not for much longer
    - kelnos 6y ago
      Parent is being flippant here, but there's some truth to this. If we get into a Cold War with China (or, worse, a shooting war), China may attempt to forcibly re-unify Taiwan, and they have a pretty good chance of succeeding.
      - monocasa 6y ago
        Very true. However there's only a very slim chance that they'd get TSMC out of that. Taiwan has made it pretty clear that they'd rather destroy TSMC than let it fall into PRC hands. Since they don't have nukes, holding a large portion of the global semiconductor supply change hostage is a very large part of the power they wield geopolitically. ironically, Taiwan falling to the PRC probably makes the US the inheritor of at least down to TSMC's 5nm node. That DoD backed foundry in Arizona then being orphaned would probably mean it either spins off as a US company or goes on the market in some backroom deal.
solarkraft 6y ago
Foxconn is taiwanese, Samsung south korean. Some Nvidia chips are also made by Samsung. Apart from these inaccuracies however I'd mostly agree that us-american manufacturing is not in a great position, to put it mildly. That's not neccessarily where the real value lies, however: That's usually exactly in the designs, where the USA are strong.
- javajosh 6y ago
  Physical manufacturing doesn't matter until the shooting starts.
  - magicsmoke 6y ago
    America is the world power least worried about physical geography and locations if and when the shooting starts. 2 oceans as moats, plenty of oil and natural resources on its home turf, and all potential flashpoints on the other side of the world. I'm sure America would love to give WW2 another run, especially considering how last time it shook them out of the great depression and devastated everyone else's industrial base.
    - danaris 6y ago
      While I'm sure there are plenty of people who see it this way, it's not 1939 anymore. If it came to war, there would be a plethora of ways China could devastate the US's infrastructure and terrorize its civilian population.
    - AnonC 6y ago
      Cyber warfare is probably a more likely and a bigger threat than missiles. Attacking core infrastructure (like power grids, for example) connected to a network would bring things to a crawl or to a stop.
    - tharne 6y ago
      Oceans are nice, for sure. But if you're reliant on China and others for all of your manufactured goods including semi-conductors, you're in for a world of pain, oceans or not. Likewise, oil and gas aren't all that helpful if you can't get them out of the ground because your equipment is broken and all the replacement parts are made in China. I say this as a patriotic American. Comparisons to WWII are fairly off-base because in the 1930's and 40's we were much less reliant on foreign countries for manufactured goods.
nabla9 6y ago
Virtually all economic talking points you see in the news and columns are based on data that simplifies the issue to the point where it's misleading. You need to evaluate international trade using value added to get a proper picture (TiVA = Trade in Value Added) Chinese tech exports have been typically low value added assembly jobs. They import components from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, EU and the US and assemble them together at the PCB level and up. Few years ago, only 4$ per iPhone was left in China when you subtracted the value of imported parts from the exported value. Chinese are climbing the value chain and sanctions force them to climb them faster.
- gruez 6y ago
  >assemble them together at the PCP level and up I think you mean PCB, not PCP
  - nabla9 6y ago
    Yes.
theandrewbailey 6y ago
> Nvidia is the same but the chips are fabbed by TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor). That's been mostly true, but Nvidia's latest chips are coming from Samsung's fabs. Nvidia will probably switch back to TSMC when openings appear. https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung-8nm-process-nvidia-geforce-rtx-30-ampere https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung-8nm-process-nvidia-ge...

bruckie 6y ago

Samsung is Korean.

simonh 6y ago

Very few iPhone components are actually manufactured in China even now, it's just where all the parts are assembled, but the value contribution of assembly is only a few dollars per device[0]. Back in the day as much as about 40% of the components by value were manufactured in the USA, including the early Samsung CPUs made in a fab in Texas, and Gorilla Glass made by Corning in New York state. That was actually the case at the height of the furore about iPhones being made in China around 2010-2012, although few commentators bothered finding that out. Nowadays the countries of origin are more diverse, and the proportion made in the USA has fallen. The biggest single change though was moving from US made Samsung CPUs to TSMC chips from Taiwan. I believe some of the more sophisticated assembly and QA test equipment is US made, or at least used to be but can't find a reference for that online. [0]https://www.lifewire.com/where-is-the-iphone-made-1999503 https://www.lifewire.com/where-is-the-iphone-made-1999503

tooltalk 6y ago
China accounts for only about 5% of global semi sales, according to SIAC's 2019 annual report. The US still dominates in logic and analog sub-product categories by a wide margin. > Back in the day as much as about 40%... 40% sounds too high -- I think 18% at max is more realistic. Apple's A chip cost was estimated between $12-$20 or about 7%-8% of total BOM. Aside from Apple's A chips fabbed by Samsung and baseband/RF/sensors by Qualcomm/Skyworks, I can't think of any other significant US components in Apple's mobile product. The most valuable components in the iPhones in those days were DRAM/NAND flash storage (about 30% of BOM) and displays and they came from either Japan or South Korea. Micron wasn't an significant supplier until Apple's relationship with Samsung soured. Sure, who can forget Tim Apple's rare CBS interview where he proudly declared the engines of their portable devices were made in the US, after which Apple promptly outsourced it to TSMC in Taiwan. I suspect that that was a calculated move to make the final defense of their outsourcing practices before moving that out of the US as well.

Open-Sourcery 6y ago

Ahh yes, Foxconn and Samsung, two famous Chinese companies...

dba7dba 6y ago
Foxconn = Taiwan Samsung = South Korea
- djmips 6y ago
  You missed the sarcasm. Replied to help you build your sarcasm filter.

agumonkey 6y ago

Someone did remind us that TSMC relies on dutch machines for wafer productions. It's not china-skills-black-hole as one could think (I used to)

iagovar 6y ago
If you trust the EU to prevent ASML end up in chinese hands, then you're trusting too much.
- yvdriess 6y ago
  ASML is already banned by the Netherlands government to deal with China.
conradev 6y ago
also, the first T in TSMC stands for Taiwan, which is not China
- renw0rp 6y ago
  Not for much longer
  - kelnos 6y ago
    Parent is being flippant here, but there's some truth to this. If we get into a Cold War with China (or, worse, a shooting war), China may attempt to forcibly re-unify Taiwan, and they have a pretty good chance of succeeding.
    - monocasa 6y ago
      Very true. However there's only a very slim chance that they'd get TSMC out of that. Taiwan has made it pretty clear that they'd rather destroy TSMC than let it fall into PRC hands. Since they don't have nukes, holding a large portion of the global semiconductor supply change hostage is a very large part of the power they wield geopolitically. ironically, Taiwan falling to the PRC probably makes the US the inheritor of at least down to TSMC's 5nm node. That DoD backed foundry in Arizona then being orphaned would probably mean it either spins off as a US company or goes on the market in some backroom deal.

solarkraft 6y ago

Foxconn is taiwanese, Samsung south korean. Some Nvidia chips are also made by Samsung. Apart from these inaccuracies however I'd mostly agree that us-american manufacturing is not in a great position, to put it mildly. That's not neccessarily where the real value lies, however: That's usually exactly in the designs, where the USA are strong.

javajosh 6y ago
Physical manufacturing doesn't matter until the shooting starts.
- magicsmoke 6y ago
  America is the world power least worried about physical geography and locations if and when the shooting starts. 2 oceans as moats, plenty of oil and natural resources on its home turf, and all potential flashpoints on the other side of the world. I'm sure America would love to give WW2 another run, especially considering how last time it shook them out of the great depression and devastated everyone else's industrial base.
  - danaris 6y ago
    While I'm sure there are plenty of people who see it this way, it's not 1939 anymore. If it came to war, there would be a plethora of ways China could devastate the US's infrastructure and terrorize its civilian population.
  - AnonC 6y ago
    Cyber warfare is probably a more likely and a bigger threat than missiles. Attacking core infrastructure (like power grids, for example) connected to a network would bring things to a crawl or to a stop.
  - tharne 6y ago
    Oceans are nice, for sure. But if you're reliant on China and others for all of your manufactured goods including semi-conductors, you're in for a world of pain, oceans or not. Likewise, oil and gas aren't all that helpful if you can't get them out of the ground because your equipment is broken and all the replacement parts are made in China. I say this as a patriotic American. Comparisons to WWII are fairly off-base because in the 1930's and 40's we were much less reliant on foreign countries for manufactured goods.

nabla9 6y ago

Virtually all economic talking points you see in the news and columns are based on data that simplifies the issue to the point where it's misleading. You need to evaluate international trade using value added to get a proper picture (TiVA = Trade in Value Added) Chinese tech exports have been typically low value added assembly jobs. They import components from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, EU and the US and assemble them together at the PCB level and up. Few years ago, only 4$ per iPhone was left in China when you subtracted the value of imported parts from the exported value. Chinese are climbing the value chain and sanctions force them to climb them faster.

gruez 6y ago
>assemble them together at the PCP level and up I think you mean PCB, not PCP
- nabla9 6y ago
  Yes.

theandrewbailey 6y ago

> Nvidia is the same but the chips are fabbed by TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor). That's been mostly true, but Nvidia's latest chips are coming from Samsung's fabs. Nvidia will probably switch back to TSMC when openings appear. https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung-8nm-process-nvidia-geforce-rtx-30-ampere https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung-8nm-process-nvidia-ge...