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alberth

Has Apple in its history ever manufactured components themselves?

I know they have created machinery for their suppliers to use, but actual manufacturing before?

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Apple use to directly manufacture its computers at is own factories in the US (and maybe elsewhere).

And if I recall correctly the last two generations of Mac Pro systems have been built in their own plants.

Of course that only says they have experience with making cases and motherboards, not down to the level of chip and screen components

> the last two generations of Mac Pro systems have been built in their own plants

As far as we know, Apple doesn’t own any of its manufacturing directly. The Mac Pro plant in Texas is operated by either Quanta or Flex[1], depending on who you ask.

You could argue that it’s largely a semantic difference, though, because those facilities are dedicated entirely to Apple and they’re usually the ones funding their construction.

1. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/23/apple-will-make-the-mac-pro-...

Apple owns an iMac factory in Ireland.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20333879.html

Otherwise, some repair/refurbishment lines might be Apple owned.

My memory is that part of Tim Cook's original jobs was to get Apple off their own manufacturing.

Sorry for my naivety, but how does a company keep memory of the processes and oral knowledge if they don’t own the factory? Is everything specified enough in requirement documents and process sheets that “factory providers” have a clear guide to implement their factory?

And does that really save on CapEx given that Apple funds the construction anyway and secrecy is absolute as well?

This situation let's the contract between Apple and the fabricators be results based and Apple can focus on Apple things and the manufacturer has the burden of spending the factory budget and getting results.

This helps keep crisp lines of delineation between design and production. That is my understanding.

The processes that Apple is outsourcing are considered disposable as the technology changes. The oral traditions and cultural knowledge are in the software/hardward/design ideals.

That was nothing more than a dog and pony show for Trump. They still did all of their real manufacturing overseas.

Which step are you counting as "manufacture"? They will have a lot of partners here in the supply chain of this component; ams-Osram, LG, and TSMC according to the article.

In terms of Apple being "hands on" in manufacturing I don't see this as too different from the Apple Silicon case, where they design but work with partners in Taiwan+China to manufacture.

I see the big news here as "moving away from Samsung", where they would likely have to continue to invest in a competitor (money and IP) in order to get microLED technology through them.

Continuing to work with Samsung (or LG, etc) means as soon as Apple gets a cool new display tech, so does everyone else. Because they don’t control it.

If Apple controls it all and they get it working, they can have an advantage until everyone else figured it out on their own without infringement. Even a 2-3 year advantage (like the A series gave them) would be huge.

AFAIK, they have have never manufactured components before.

Every company that does manufacture components had to start at some point. This seems like a good time for Apple to start.

Good time and place to start too- the smallest screens of any product they produce and only the high end (and margin) models. Always better to start small. Can work out the kinks before going wide.

Apple probably has several engineers embedded in TSMC and Samsung's teams. You may not have a fab, but I don't think that it is likely that you can build an advanced CPU in the newest process without having a few teams directly involved in the manufacture.

They have designed their own SoCs, own BLE radio and now working on their own cellular and Wifi radios.

I understand displays is another beast but apple is doing complete vertical integration like no one else. Anytime they notice a dependency on specific vendor, they try to move out.

But design is not manufacture.

Have they ever manufactured components before?

The sapphire glass used on some devices was reportedly made in an apple owned factory, according to Apple terms, using equipment Apple paid for. The actual production was handled by a third party using that space that went bankrupt, but I'd say it counts.

This would be the most significant component they've manufactured in-house though.

That doesn't count because the other company had designed the process, but didn't have capacity to produce at Apple-level volumes. Apple paid for the expansion,and then ditched the company's product (which led to the bankruptcy)

Designed, yes. But not manufactured afaik

They definitely have assembled them but I don’t think they ever felt the need to manufacture because the infrastructure for doing that for various types of parts is so strong. This is probably just another step in vertical integration and hedging against their supply chain being vulnerable.

I believe the supplier for iOS displays in general has been Samsung for a while (majority) with a few other suppliers mixed in. Maybe they want to keep going with this technology and Samsung is moving away from it.

They’re not going to be fabbing their own chips so maybe it’s an attempt to shore up other areas that are less moated.

At this point there isn't any significant infrastructure for building microled displays anywhere. Why invest in a competitor when they would do the same exact thing you would, but they would own it?

You can kinda view ARM and TSMC as their babies. They founded ARM and financed all the node tech in TSMC that made TSMC competitive.

Not in this universe:

History of TSMC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fVrWDdll0g

ARM was born out of the BBC micro project, so if anything a BBC baby.

From Wikipedia about ARM:

"The company was founded in November 1990 as Advanced RISC Machines Ltd and structured as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple, and VLSI Technology."

All latest node tech from TSMC was co-financed by Apple who in turn had the first-user right.

But the ARM architecture was originally an Acorn internal project (it was originally the Acorn RISC Machine), with the first Acorn Archimedes systems released in mid-1987. As you noted Apple did invest in the project later, when ARM the company was founded, but they also bailed out in the late '90s when they had their own financial issues.

> The company was founded in November 1990 as Advanced RISC Machines Ltd and structured as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple, and VLSI Technology.

The company was renamed to Advanced RISC Machines to placate Apple - the first ARM processor was the Acorn RISC Machine, which tells you it's true heritage.

They are referring to the fact that Acorn, Apple and VLSI were the co-founders of ARM. This is the source of Apple’s very expansive license to ARM

Sure if we just ignore all the billions that the Tawiwanese government poured into TSMC, and all the stock investors' money, and ignore the other clients TSMC had, and the fact that they got to 20-nanometer without any funding from Apple as far as I know, then I guess you are right.

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