Risking the future of your business for a 20% customer sounds like a tricky proposition, and moves like this have real risk for TSMC. It's hard to predict the

Risking the future of your business for a 20% customer sounds like a tricky proposition, and moves like this have real risk for TSMC. It's hard to predict the future; and the whole point of a foundry and why TSMC has been so successful is because they refused to play that game. They kept their options open and flexible rather than betting on a few key chips, and they've repeatedly pointed out how the very diversity of their customers has meant they always have some customer willing to be a guinea pig for some new tech. Losing diversity is a cost; it undermines their very business model. From a business perspective you'd hope they really made apple pay through the nose for that cost, and not just acquiesce because they're a significant customer. I'd say it's at least plausible that TSMC miscalculated here, and didn't think AMD and Qualcomm (and perhaps others) would dare. To be clear: they might still get lucky (and AMD/Qualcomm unlucky) - it's not exactly news that new process nodes sometimes fail or are delayed, and if Samsung turns out not to be able to deliver, they'll be able to reacquire that diversity with little trouble, surely. And if they can replace AMD/Qualcomm with other leading edge customers they might not even really be losing much of that diversity they value so highly.