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Comment by svnt | Hacker News Reader

My reading of this is that Apple is happy to wait a bit on next-gen given the macro conditions. However if they just admitted that it would be a big hit to image. So instead they are looking to create scapegoats.

The most plausible scapegoat is the cutting-edge one with a price hike because there is maximum room for others to speculate on what isn’t right/good enough, and there is minimum risk of giving up their spot in line.

By the time competition is up on it, Apple can return to their most familiar location: somewhat behind on the bleeding edge of tech, but ahead on integration and UX.

It’s also possible that Apple is going to take fab in-house but I’m not aware of any signs of preparation and something like that seems like it would be impossible to keep secret.

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>By the time competition is up on it, Apple can return to their most familiar location: somewhat behind on the bleeding edge of tech, but ahead on integration and UX.

Seems like a good tradeoff. Is the next years best TSMC chip really that much better than last year's? I doubt it.

From TSMCs marketing material

> N3 technology will offer up to 70% logic density gain, up to 15% speed improvement at the same power and up to 30% power reduction at the same speed as compared with N5 technology.

That is a more modest bump than some previous nodes, but still seems worth a 6% increase in price depending on how yields shake out.

All those "up tos" can sometimes add up to "actually not much".

And if Apple is currently a "generation ahead" they can spend that lead-time in other ways. They've done it before out of necessity, and I wouldn't be surprised if Apple has phone features they're holding back to "gloss over" a release that doesn't really have much more CPU.

You think it's possible apple builds a new fab (they have none) and immediately jumps to better than TSMC 5nm?

No. It's impossible to trade (even infinite amounts of) money for calendar time or supply access.

Any moves Apple made now would wind their way through ASML et al., through fab construction and qualification, and then finally adapting their chips to a new process.

They could pull the trigger on the Power to Intel because they'd spent a decade+ of contingency planning, OS/app support, and acquisitions.

This isn't like that.

Can we be sure Apple hasn't been quietly building a fab or at least fab expertise somewhere in the bowels of Cupertino? Do we have enough insight into ASML to be sure they haven't purchased even older fab equipment?

This is what the TSMC construction site in Arizona looks like.

https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2022/05/26/tsmc-pho...

They’re probably not hiding something like that in Cupertino.

It’s in basement level 2 under the mothership, directly under the Apple Car test track on basement level 1

Not even a reality distortion field can make something bigger on the inside. :D

fabs take years to build. The only real option Apple would have is some kind of joint venture with Intel and maybe try to bring in the US Department of Defense or US government in general to push the whole chip national security talking point and get more funding

> The only real option Apple would have...

TSMC has a market cap of $356B and maybe $30B in cash. Apple has a market cap of $3.25T and over $200B in cash. Surely you are overlooking a possible option here, which is Apple acquiring TSMC. I don't see it as likely, but it is an option.

Taiwan's government would never allow TSMC to be acquired, it's key to their national security

If Apple owned TSMC, wouldn't that make Taiwan more secure, since the US would have more of an interest?

Not really. Our interest in TSMC and other tech assets in Taiwan is already enormous. Any impact would really be on the margins.

I really doubt that would be allowed to go through due to the conflicting interests it would create regarding chips produced for all other competitors (AMD, Google, Qualcomm etc). It would be seen as similar to the NVIDIA buyout of ARM.

Well, I think that's their leverage (if they have any). They kick the can, wait, take the hit, and then in the meantime make it clear that next time they'll have their own fab. In that scenario TSMC is looking at demanding a 6% hike vs jumpstarting competitors in other countries.

Maybe it's unrealistic but it wouldn't be the first time something like that happened in a market. The political conditions aren't unfavorable either.

> bring in the US Department of Defense or US government in general

This is a guaranteed route to introducing even more delays, cost overruns, schedule overruns, onerous requirements, intrusive oversight, and about a trillion meetings and studies along the way.

If you want to go fast, stay far far away from the USG.

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