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It seems risky to invest so much in your own chip design without owning a fab too. If they really want to go down this route, I'd expect a purchase of TSMC or s
by Osmium 14y ago
It seems risky to invest so much in your own chip design without owning a fab too. If they really want to go down this route, I'd expect a purchase of TSMC or similar. And you're not going to stay competitive for long unless you invest heavily, at least on the scale Intel is. Apple users have watched their computers slip behind before with PowerPC, I'm not sure if they'd have the patience to see that happen again.
- kalms 14y agoGood point. One of the reasons for the Mac's success, during the last 7 years, has been the x86 architecture. They better know what they're doing - I would hate for history to repeat itself.
- protomyth 14y agoA lot of people I know jumped to the Mac (more than 100 machines) because of bootcamp / vmware. I don't think they would have felt safe otherwise.
- kalms 14y agoI'm one of them.
- rhizome 14y agox86 has been a follow-on benefit to the evolution of OSX, particularly after Panther (10.3). Since OSX is based on FreeBSD, it was a short hop to x86 once they got the OS kinks ironed out (and their PowerPC arrangements expired).
- Someone 14y agoA problem with that approach is that owning a top-of-the-line fab is expensive because you have to buy a new one every few years. Every next generation is more expensive than the one before it. I would think owning a fab just for the production of chips used in Apple products would be too expensive to consider. Owning a fab and selling chips to others, to me, looks to go way too much against Apple's culture. "Apple users have watched their computers slip behind before with PowerPC" I think that is exactly why Apple has a backup plan to move to ARM. If Microsoft is successful at moving to ARM with Surface, they will have to follow.
- Osmium 14y agoPutting aside the fact that the fab takes a healthy chunk of profit, the question is one of capacity. A fab is under no obligation to provide Apple with chips, and given a choice between one big contract with Apple or diversifying and having a dozen smaller contracts with other manufacturers and I know what I'd pick. The problem then, for Apple, is that they can't just turn around and get their chips made somewhere else. There just aren't enough fabs in the world to produce them at the quantity Apple needs, especially using latest-generation processes.
- silvestrov 14y agoMac volume is way lower than iPhone volume, so the additional risk is miniscule. It's almost like the Mac is just a big 'hobby' for Apple.
- protomyth 14y agoApple could pay for part of a fab for someone else. They have done this for other components (e.g. displays).
- Someone 14y agoWhich one would you pick? The one with AAA rating that pays half up front that pays well for state of the art stuff, or the dozen smaller ones that seem more concerned about your pricing than about the quality of your products? Yes, I probably am exaggerating, but I do not think the choice is as clearcut as you indicate. There is risk in taking on a customer that is larger than you, but there also is a lot of potential profit there.
- PanMan 14y agoWhy would it be too expensive? How many fab's are there (so, which % of worldwide output does each do), and how much % of all intel chips is bought by Apple? If the numbers are somewhat equal, they buy the capacity of one fab anyway. Then they can just as well buy the fab itself.
- Someone 14y ago