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Intel could return to Apple computers in 2027
- ChrisArchitect 10mo ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46080424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46080424
- bhouston 10mo agoI think a lot missed it because of Thanksgiving in the US.
- awestroke 10mo agoWell I sure hope not. I'll never buy a mac with an Intel processor again
- Analemma_ 10mo agoThey're talking about Intel fabbing Apple Silicon chips, not going back to x86.
- 725686 10mo agoThe very first sentence of the article: "Will Apple turn to Intel for production of its M-series chips in 2027? " So it is not returning to Intel architecture.
- Findecanor 10mo agoPerhaps the headline should have been changed when the post was made here.
- kotaKat 10mo ago“Intel-manufactured Apple Silicon could return to Apple’s computers in 2027”
- downrightmike 10mo agoDirt cheap M1's?
- kotaKat 10mo agoM1’s already dead, A18 Pro’s where it’s at for that.
- g8oz 10mo agoA18 Pro is iOS only though, not Mac.
- giobox 10mo agoThe budget MacBook due next year is widely rumored to adopt the A18 Pro CPU. > https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/30/new-macbook-with-a18-chip-spotted/ https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/30/new-macbook-with-a18-ch...
- sertsa 10mo agoLots of rumors about a new Macbook with a Axx chip in the pipe.
- Tagbert 10mo agoOr people should read beyond the headline before commenting
- morshu9001 10mo agoMaybe they did and just really hate Intel fab
- bhouston 10mo agoReturning as a US on shore manufacturer of Apple designed chips, and apparently not the leading edge ones. This feels like making Trump happy while Apple keeps full control.
- simpsond 10mo agoGetting foundry services off the ground requires starting somewhere. Apple is hedging. I don’t see it as a bad thing for Intel.
- JumpCrisscross 10mo ago> don’t see it as a bad thing for Intel Isn't this a ringing success for their strategy of separating chip design from fabrication?
- bluGill 10mo agoNot clear - design depends on what can be fabricated. If you do both you get options to talk in the middle of design for both. Maybe, who knows.
- reverserdev 10mo agoFabrication also depends on what is designed, no? There is a coupling between the two?
- bluGill 10mo agoNot in most cases. Apple, AMD, and most other chip makers lack a fab. The design what the fabs can make, but they don't have much input into the fabs. Someone makes a fab, and you make something it can made. Of course things are never that neat. I have no doubt the large players have input into the fabs - we have no idea what. However the two teams are still different companies, when the fab and chip design are the same company there is the possibility of more cooperation (or less - we don't know. In the best case for both there is more when it is all internal, but we don't know if this is the best case)
- jsheard 10mo agoThe funniest outcome would be Apple throwing so much money at Intel Foundry that they end up monopolizing the leading-edge nodes, like they do at TSMC, leaving the rest of Intel to fight for scraps on their own production lines. I guess Intel also uses TSMC now but... yeah, as mentioned.
- dmitrygr 10mo agoTypically Apple offers to pay a large percent of R&D cost in return for a year of exclusivity. I do not know why they'd not do the same here.
- phkahler 10mo agoAt that point Intel would be a highly successful foundry business! Then they could make very high performance RISC-V cores and offer them to foundry customers who need CPU. No need for legacy x86 at that point.
- pqtyw 10mo ago> Intel would be a highly successful foundry business > very high performance RISC-V cores Just need some unicorns on rainbows to with both of those.
- bigyabai 10mo agoBoth are objectively true, though. IFS would finally stand on it's own legs with a customer at Apple's scale, and Intel has the required IP and know-how to provide a stopgap RISC chip to embedded and datacenter customers that Apple usually ignores. The "nightmare scenario" of Apple buying out the entirety of 14A to fabricate ARM chips is more-or-less what Pat Gelsinger spent his tenure trying to arrange.
- pqtyw 10mo agoWhy would Intel design and make a RISC-V chips? Fundamentally they don't have any inherent advantages over x86 or ARM whatsoever(for datacenter atleast). It makes no sense for Intel to make embedded chips on 14A or non several generations old process either (margins on them are pitiful anyway and won't sustain Intel R&D spending). Also x86 provides a huge moat to Intel/AMD which allows them to charge much higher prices than if they had to compete with anyone else.
- andy_ppp 10mo agoI think the costs in the contract when Intel don’t deliver the volume and yields will effectively mean Apple ends up owning the remains of the company.
- GenerWork 10mo agoThat would be an interesting play. Acquire a chip design and foundry company all because they couldn't meet the purposely stringent deadline, and then use their expertise and assets to produce AI chips for yourself.
- andy_ppp 10mo agoYeah they will just ruthlessly hire all the TSMC people they already have relationships with.
- xnx 10mo agoSource: https://x.com/mingchikuo/status/1994422001952555318 https://x.com/mingchikuo/status/1994422001952555318
- echelon_musk 10mo agoIf Intel make the CPUs in the USA are they going to be shipped to China for final assembly?
- tantalor 10mo agoWhy not? A single Boeing 747-8F could carry 10M-50M chips in a single trip.
- epicureanideal 10mo agoThe value of that airplane would be astronomical. I would split it up into dozens of flights just to reduce risk if one of them had a mechanical problem.
- dylan604 10mo agoThey said 747, not 737MAX, so the risk isn't as high /s Then again, if it were A320s, they'd be at risk of solar flares, so best go by ship I think
- HansHamster 10mo agoShould be fine as long as the chips have ECC
- dylan604 10mo agonot the new chips. the A320 itself crashing while losing all of the loot onboard
- HansHamster 10mo agothat was the joke
- bhouston 10mo agoI'm going to call it now, the next big heist movie is going to be about hijacking a plane/container full of AI chips valued at >$1B.
- poemxo 10mo agoI trust TSMC more than Intel, and I can't help but wonder if this is related https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46045236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46045236
- ajross 10mo agoIf one executive hire was all it took to steal a whole process node, TSMC could never have built the lead it has (nor Intel the lead it had in previous decades). Semiconductor manufacturing is an exercise in blood, tears and careful note taking, not Magic Secrets.
- mosura 10mo agoThe most obvious thing would be Intel making security processor modules. Get the supply chain for those onshore, from the US point of view. Doesn’t require the absolute latest processes.
- ggm 10mo agoI think this is a very astute comment. It reminded me that for a while all SIM everywhere seemed to come from one european chip plant, although now I say it I wonder if they were just the assembly & packaging and fabrication was offshore? In both cases (tpm and sim) the cynic would say it's only deciding which economy owns the back-door.
- formerly_proven 10mo agoYou are probably referring to NXP (formerly Philips) and Infineon (formerly Siemens), both of which have produced crypto processors, smartcards (including SIMs) and other secure elements for a really long time. Infineon is/was actually a really common supplier for the little 20-pin TPM/LPC modules.
- ggm 10mo agoYes i think you're right. The nexus of sim, smart card and tpm seems strong. I e used thales and Luna (now also thales) HSM which are in hypothesis glamorous, but ultimately remarkably pedestrian secure devices. I wonder if they include logic from these companies. Supply chain behind FIPS120 class stuff would be an interesting story.
- Bengalilol 10mo agoIt was Gemplus. The backstory about how CIA and NSA got control over it is fascinating. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemalto#Gemplus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemalto#Gemplus>
- Bengalilol 10mo agoMore here: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TPG_Inc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TPG_Inc.>
- School-Cotton 10mo agoSemi-clickbait headline: as others have pointed out, this is just about who fabs the Apple-designed chips, not a contemplated return to x86. Still pretty interesting if true; would be cool to see Apple diversify from TSMC. I'm rooting for Intel!
- oofbey 10mo agoTSMC's dominance is bad for the entire industry. Everybody is better off having alternatives - everybody except TSMC.
- mproud 10mo agoAt best, it’s Intel outside
- spoaceman7777 10mo agoYeah, this is pure clickbait. And it's barely even new "news" anyway. Apple has been actively testing Intel's 18A process, and has been in talks with Samsung as well. There are only three advanced chip manufacturers in the world (TSMC, Samsung, and Intel), so of course Apple has been in talks with all of them. The whole story is based on a tweet from an analyst anyway. "Company that designs its own chips might use one of the three chip manufacturers in the world, based on my hunch." hmmmmmmmmm... Sounds more like someone just loaded up on Intel calls to me. (Not that the reality of the situation isn't real and obvious.)
- BonoboIO 10mo agoHas intel caught up to TSMC? I highly doubt that they can manufacture that high end chips.
- oofbey 10mo agoPretty sure the answer is "No" - Intel is still pretty far behind TSMC on the high-end. But the old metric of "transistor size" measured in nanometers isn't a good indicator any more. The marketing numbers don't reflect reality in ways I don't understand.
- GeekyBear 10mo agoThis link has much more information: > Apple has used version 0.9.1 of process design kit (PDK) designed for Intel 18AP node. With performance, density, power, and every other metric going according to plan, Intel could become Apple's source of advanced node production in 2027... The 18A-P node enhances Intel's 18A by incorporating RibbonFET and PowerVia technologies, which offer better performance and energy efficiency. Compared to the regular 18A node, these improvements include newly designed low-threshold voltage components, optimized elements to reduce leakage, and refined ribbon width specifications, all aimed at boosting performance-per-watt metrics. https://www.techpowerup.com/343423/intel-could-manufacture-apple-m-series-chips-in-2027-with-18a-p-node https://www.techpowerup.com/343423/intel-could-manufacture-a... Remember that Apple previously dual sourced SOCs from both TSMC and Samsung before dropping Samsung when they fell behind and chips built on their process node were materially worse. This is trial production, not a done deal. Intel has to deliver on their promises. The good news for Intel is that Apple has a long history of paying up front for dedicated manufacturing lines once a manufacturing partner proves that they can hit Apple's QC metrics and price point.
- rubyn00bie 10mo agoYeah, I remember hearing NVidia did the same thing via Moore’s Law is Dead podcast. At this point it seems incredibly unlikely Intel will unseat TSMC anytime soon. TSMC has proven time and time again it is the only fab capable of producing leading edge nodes at the capacity and quality required by the likes of Apple, NVidia, and AMD. It also has substantially deeper pockets than Intel to continue to invest in staying number one. I think if Intel is to stand a chance it’ll be via gaining momentum and market via “good enough” nodes and not cutting edge, essentially taking a page out of TSMCs playbook from the late 2000s and early 2010s. It needs more capital than it can raise, and time, both of which are hard to come by.
- storus 10mo agoDidn't that "good enough" strategy fail with Global Foundries? They "good enoughed" themselves to irrelevance.
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- mproud 10mo agoMore like Intel outside
- mikey_p 10mo agoI really wish they would scale back up and finish the fab in Ohio and bring it online sooner rather than later.
- meindnoch 10mo agoSmart move. The geopolitical clock is ticking for TSMC.
- bigyabai 10mo agoTSMC is geographically decentralized, nowadays.
- diamond559 10mo agoDear leader bought Intel, Tim Apple needs to appease dear leader to avoid tariffs. 2+2
- mrcsharp 10mo agoSo conspiracy theories are cool again? No, your "dear leader" didn't buy intel. You're on HN not some crappy FB group. The bar is higher around here.
- diamond559 10mo agoI mean he literally did, but go ahead and gatekeep while you stick your head in the sand.