5 ms·
Not in the next 10 years. Why would they? Fabs are extremely capital-intensive and take years to get up and running, when (like Taiwan Semi) knows how to do it.
by tedyoung 6y ago
Not in the next 10 years. Why would they? Fabs are extremely capital-intensive and take years to get up and running, when (like Taiwan Semi) knows how to do it. Intel has shown how hard it can be to do this right. Let TSM work on production (and hopefully get more/larger fabs in the USA up and running) and getting better at packing in the transistors, and let Apple improve the design (and software).
- londons_explore 6y agoBut Apple has a lot of capital, and could win massive political brownie points for doing so, especially if they promised that some percentage of fab capacity would be sold to other American firms.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- robjan 6y agoTSMC is based in on the soil of one of America's allies.
- mschuster91 6y agoAn ally who China is dreaming of re-assimilating (or taken over, depending on which side of the view you are) since its inception. China is engaging in ever more aggressive saber rattling and the total lack of any measurable reaction to their takeover of Hong Kong only has emboldened them. Who can guarantee Taiwan won't end up the same fate?
- robjan 6y agoI am very aware of the situation, being a resident of Hong Kong, and it's completely different. Hong Kong is indisputably a part of the People's Republic of China, and the Basic Law (our Constitution) is part of the constitution of the PRC. The government of Hong Kong has always emphasised that Hong Kong is part of One Country. Taiwan is completely self-governed at the moment and sees itself as an independent nation.
- simongr3dal 6y ago> Why would they? Because Apple has a lot of capital and they wouldn’t need to compete as hard for their share of tsmc production capacity.
- cyanydeez 6y agothey are addicted to cheap labor.
- colinmhayes 6y agoHow much labor is involved in semiconductor manufacturing? It's mostly automated, right?
- valuearb 6y agoTo a man carrying an axe, everything is a tree.
- robjan 6y agoLabour isn't particularly cheap in Taiwan
- threeseed 6y agoI wouldn't considered Apple to be even competing. They are by far the biggest customer and have a multi-faceted relationship e.g. OLEDs, Modems.
- baggy_trough 6y agoBecause of the non-zero chance of Southeast Asian fabs becoming suddenly unavailable.
- Zanni 6y agoThis. It's not a money-making play; it's a catastrophic insurance policy.
- kube-system 6y agoThey’ve vertically integrated everything else, and they’ve had great success along the way. TSMC has other customers that compete with Apple for production capacity. And there’s geopolitical risk in the region where TSMC (currently) operates.
- samatman 6y ago> They’ve vertically integrated everything else What do you mean by this? Apple does very little manufacturing, they're famous for it.
- kube-system 6y agoThey’ve vertically integrated basically everything except manufacturing. Even compared to other tech giants who are highly integrated, they do a ton.
- coldtea 6y ago>They’ve vertically integrated everything else Only in that they design it, not in that they build it. In that area they have "vertically integrated" nothing.
- bosswipe 6y agoApple hasn't been vertically integrated in any kind of manufacturing since the 90s. It's all built in China.
- rodgerd 6y ago> They’ve vertically integrated everything else, and they’ve had great success along the way. Why would they want to get into the low-margin, high-risk part of their supply chain, the bit where you can sink billions of dollars and have the value wiped out by a poor choice?
- threeseed 6y agoEspecially when semiconductor manufacturing has become a major geopolitical flashpoint between China, EU, US etc. Apple would be insane to get into the middle of it.
- somethoughts 6y agoWhy would they make their own M and A processors? They could continue to buy Intel chips and revert back to using PortalPlayer and Samsung chips. Chip designing is capital intensive and takes years to get up and running, when Intel and Samsung know how to do it.
- valuearb 6y agoDesigning chips isn’t capital intensive, making them is.
- kube-system 6y agoThey did buy PA Semi to get off the ground. TSMC is probably way too expensive though.
- threeseed 6y agoThey also bought Passif Semiconductor, parts of Dialog Semiconductor, Intel's modem team, Xnor etc.
- threeseed 6y agoApple designs their own CPUs, GPUs, SOCs, Modems etc. And they dominate the competition in performance/power.