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I am surprised that Apple sources more wafers than AMD from TSMC. Are they really the largest customer in terms of wafers, or are they getting better deals than

by laydn 5y ago

I am surprised that Apple sources more wafers than AMD from TSMC. Are they really the largest customer in terms of wafers, or are they getting better deals thanks to their enormous cash reserves and financing abilities?

jjoonathan 5y ago
Yep, Apple is the biggest customer. Apple is 25% of TSMC's revenue, AMD is only 10% -- and that's after the recent growth spurt. Just one year ago, AMD was behind Apple, Huawei, Qualcomm, Broadcomm, and NVidia.
- Someone 5y ago
  That’s a different metric than “number of wafers”. Apple likely pays quite a premium for using the newer tech.
  - jjoonathan 5y ago
    Of course, but TSMC pays its shareholders in money, not wafers, so money is the correct metric for influence.
neogodless 5y ago
AMD sources a double-digit market share of PC/server CPUs, plus their GPUs, and APU chips for consoles. On the flip side, Apple sources iPhones, iPads and other chips, plus this new line of Apple Silicon.
KptMarchewa 5y ago
Even server market is small compared to mobile.
IOT_Apprentice 5y ago
How many units is AMD shipping/Quarter vs Apple? Heck, Sony & Microsoft can't even get PS5s and Xboxes in customer hands 1 year after release. I would expect it is a combination of Apple's volume of phones shipped/quarter and cash reserves.
rsynnott 5y ago
Apple can probably also afford to spend more. Like, if going from 7nm to 5nm early puts an extra $30 per laptop chip on their chips, that is probably fine for Apple; they're charging the same for a base-model M1 16" MBP as they did for the Intel one, but their costs are almost certainly quite a lot lower (the markups on higher-end Intel laptop chips are enormous, and they also don't have to pay for a GPU). For AMD, that might be a much larger deal; on the low-end that sort of price increase would give them a lot of trouble. Apple doesn't really have a low-end (even the chips in the Intel MacBook Air were quite expensive), giving them more flexibility here.

by laydn 5y ago

jjoonathan 5y ago

Yep, Apple is the biggest customer. Apple is 25% of TSMC's revenue, AMD is only 10% -- and that's after the recent growth spurt. Just one year ago, AMD was behind Apple, Huawei, Qualcomm, Broadcomm, and NVidia.

Someone 5y ago
That’s a different metric than “number of wafers”. Apple likely pays quite a premium for using the newer tech.
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  Of course, but TSMC pays its shareholders in money, not wafers, so money is the correct metric for influence.

neogodless 5y ago

AMD sources a double-digit market share of PC/server CPUs, plus their GPUs, and APU chips for consoles. On the flip side, Apple sources iPhones, iPads and other chips, plus this new line of Apple Silicon.

KptMarchewa 5y ago

Even server market is small compared to mobile.

IOT_Apprentice 5y ago

How many units is AMD shipping/Quarter vs Apple? Heck, Sony & Microsoft can't even get PS5s and Xboxes in customer hands 1 year after release. I would expect it is a combination of Apple's volume of phones shipped/quarter and cash reserves.

rsynnott 5y ago

Apple can probably also afford to spend more. Like, if going from 7nm to 5nm early puts an extra $30 per laptop chip on their chips, that is probably fine for Apple; they're charging the same for a base-model M1 16" MBP as they did for the Intel one, but their costs are almost certainly quite a lot lower (the markups on higher-end Intel laptop chips are enormous, and they also don't have to pay for a GPU). For AMD, that might be a much larger deal; on the low-end that sort of price increase would give them a lot of trouble. Apple doesn't really have a low-end (even the chips in the Intel MacBook Air were quite expensive), giving them more flexibility here.