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Does Apple really have some secret sauce, or are they just consistently first in line for TSMC's latest process? Not saying that's better or worse, but it's a v
by pkulak 4y ago
Does Apple really have some secret sauce, or are they just consistently first in line for TSMC's latest process? Not saying that's better or worse, but it's a very different problem.
- Clent 4y agoThey are able to focus on fewer designs and also are positioned to design the silicon to framework, target common bottlenecks, etc. It's the difference between tuning a game for consoles and tuning it for a PC. Apple's is funding TSMC's latest process by guaranteeing future orders. The other manufactures could do this but there is more profit in using older processes. Only a fraction of Android devices are using a process that isn't 3+ years old. Apple has end dates for their process. They are aim for this and the other companies are not. This isn't Apple Bad(tm) This is Android manufactures have a different focus. Android devices are priced to be disposable.
- 6nf 4y agoApple Silicon benefits from full vertical integration and not having to worry about third parties and their particular needs for the same silicon.
- moolcool 4y agoWhat about Samsung Exynos?
- 6nf 4y agoAre they gonna put it in the Galaxy S23?
- brookst 4y agoThis, especially with regards to backwards compatibility. Apple doesn't have to worry about some other OS / app vendor updating to support new silicon; they ship new hardware, new operating system, new Xcode, and almost everything just works. Also their silicon itself is just more advanced. I don't think anyone else is doing UMA the way they are, though I'm not 100% sure and would welcome correction.
- etempleton 4y agoA little bit of both. Apple’s chips are highly customized for their use case and that proves out in certain benchmarks where they have a dramatic lead, but even without that customization they still have a small lead by default due to being on the newest process.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bloodyplonker22 4y agoWhat a gross trivialization of the chip design process. If all a company had to do was get first in line for TSMC's process, Intel would drop all their fabs and just pay that money to TSMC to beat AMD.
- drexlspivey 4y ago> If all a company had to do was get first in line for TSMC's process, Intel would drop all their fabs and just pay that money to TSMC to beat AMD. What money? They already paid them. Building fabs has a massive upfront cost that you depreciate for decades. The economics have to make sense for them to move to TSMC
- zerd 4y ago"Intel is engaged with TSMC on N3 for its next-generation graphic processors (GPUs) in 2023". https://www.eetimes.com/intel-will-rely-on-tsmc-for-its-rebound/ https://www.eetimes.com/intel-will-rely-on-tsmc-for-its-rebo...
- samus 4y agoIt's a side business for Intel. Unlike AMD, Intel has never managed to produce GPUs that perform close to the current state of the art. For TSMC, it would be an error to start large-scale production of chips for someone that still has their own manufacturing capability. TSMC would have to allocate less fab capacity to their existing customers, and those won't like that.
- samus 4y agoThat would be a very costly mistake for Intel since then they couldn't cater their existing markets anymore. AMD and Nvidia are already struggling since they must share TSMC's capacity with Apple. Also, it remains to be seen whether the x86 architecture can keep ahead of ARM-based designs and maybe also RISC-V in the far future. Apple has good designs, consistent long-term plans, and doesn't have to directly compete with Intel over domination in the x86 market. They offer a complete package outside the x86 market. This fits well with who a market leader like TSMC would want as a partner.
- sonofhans 4y agoApple’s secret sauce is their long-term focus, colored strongly by their many awful experiences being held hostage by CPU manufacturers. They’ve re-architected their entire software stack on multiple occasions to deal with manufacturing partners who could no longer keep up. For example, it was a big deal when they moved from IBM/Motorola to Intel, and Macs started getting much faster right away. A decade later and Intel is struggling to keep up at the high end, woefully behind in low-power contexts, and Apple is again hamstrung in their plans. So at some point they decided to make their own chips. Well, to design them, and to use their leverage with TMSC to get them made exclusively. It’s true that they have fewer dependencies than a more general-purpose manufacturer like Intel, but don’t discount the many years they’ve spent eating shit while waiting for their “partners” to catch up. In the CPU space, they’ll never do that again.
- rodgerd 4y ago> Apple’s secret sauce is their long-term focus, colored strongly by their many awful experiences being held hostage by CPU manufacturers. This is the key point. There used to be a lot of chip makers and phone vendors in the Android space (hell, even Sony had their own processors for their early phones), both ARM and the odd non-ARM effort. The way that the Android market has collapsed down to essentially "Qualcomm and Samsung" is what's hurting Android, and Qualcomm, in particular, are the reason that things like support lifecycles are such garbage. Google have been completely disinterested in solving this problem in any way, while Apple have.
- hinkley 4y agoApple tried and failed to make a chipset to replace Qualcomm didn't they? I'd love to see them try again. And I feel like that's an area where their particular culture (of looking at vendors that make them resentful and trying to do something about it) might even put them in a place where they're willing to sell those chips or designs to other carriers because fuck Qualcomm.
- rodgerd 4y ago> Apple tried and failed to make a chipset to replace Qualcomm didn't they? I can't remember whether it was sourcing Intel modems or rolling their own, but yeah, either way they fell foul of Qualcomm's nest of patents: Qualcomm's real competitive edge is that they are experts at lobbying to have their patented tech built into government and NGO standards. You don't need to make decent chips or support them for more than a couple of years if it's illegal not to use them.
- 0xDEF 4y agoApple (and Nvidia) can afford to pay to be first in line for the latest TSMC process. But that alone doesn't explain why Apple's 2.5 year old mid-range offering is faster than the latest and greatest from Samsung.
- gambiting 4y agoWell, it's latest and greatest from Snapdragon. Samsung's own attempt(Exynos) was so poor it got completely ditched this year.
- Spooky23 4y agoThey have unlimited cash and buy capacity in advance. Also, in the old days when they weren’t the juggernaut they are today, they always were good and minimizing SKUs and economy of scale. In 2005, the #1 part on state contracts were iMacs, even though Apple market share was like 3%. That level of control and planning means they know what they need and can adjust. Overages in Apple Watch CPUs are subsidizing the HomePod, etc. In the case of the iPhone, they put an overpowered chip in there because why not.
- bangonkeyboard 4y agoThe S23 is on TSMC's 4nm node. The iPhone 12 was TSMC's first-gen 5nm.
- pkulak 4y agoThank you. No offense to everyone else replying to me, but this one-liner is worth more than all the hot-takes and random conjecture put together.
- hinkley 4y agoCustomers with expensive tastes help you roll out new product lines. Cheap customers may end up costing you money, or at the very least represent a negative opportunity cost. You have to work out for yourself whether the gravitas of having a full schedule lets you get more paying customers in the door.