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lysace

Made using which process? The article doesn't mention this.

https://www.tsmc.com/english/dedicatedFoundry/technology/log...

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The smallest process they've got up and running right now is 4nm, last I checked

And for the record the A17 Pro chip is 3nm. Used in the iPhone 15 pro and the iPad mini.

But they could make iPhone 14’s and the smaller 15’s.

So which device will these be for then? I thought Apple stuff are always on the cutting edge node.

Their new stuff is. The iPad mini just moved from the A15 to the A17, The first MacBook with Intel processors had access to a bin that was not generally available yet. The yield was too low for it to work for an IBM, a Sony, or a Fujitsu. But Apple was low volume and high margin.

If I was nervous about a new fab, there’s the iPhone SE, the Apple TV, lots of choices for a less aggressive manufacturing node and less aggressive sales figures. If yield is shit you can still offer a product that isn’t killed by its own success.

I wonder if Apple Intelligence is forcing them to create new chips for things like the SE and TV instead of using old chips which I think they’d usually do.

I'm a long time AAPL shareholder, admittedly I have not been paying super close attention over the last couple of years. But I'm pretty sure Apple has a history of being perfectly fine with their entry level devices being one killer feature behind the rest of their fleet. If the old hardware can support it fine, and if not then better luck next time (literally and figuratively).

They don't usually do it for very long, and my recollection is that they usually bring it down market before (maybe concurrent with) introducing yet another new killer feature.

So you'll be correct soon enough, but there's slack time there that they can use to hedge their bets on the new fab before leaning on it for the WWDC keynote.

Apple still produces older generation devices long after the latest ones are released. That's their whole strategy to address the lower end market.

iPhone SE

As an outsider that means somewhere in 2nm-10nm as everyone measures different things or have awfully off-standard rulers.

I’d say it means TSMC 4nm.

4nm

I thought Taiwan prohibited export of this kind of know-how? What did I miss?

They have adopted a n-2 type of rule for advanaced tech...but as of yesterday they seem to have relaxed this rule and approved transfer of 2nm from Taiwan fabs to the AZ fab at some point in the near future.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/tsmc-cleared-for-2nm-p...

Advanced lithography is like if a mystery cult were real: Secret knowledge only understood by the most learned initiates, tightly-guarded process, etching symbols that do things...

Sadly true.

Even more depressing: it's like a very complicated baking recipe arrived at by tweaking parameters over and over a again. There is no deep understanding... just a giant list of baking parameters that seem to work, sometimes.

(Yes, a bit like an AI. Hmm....)

I'd be extremely surprised if Apple is now able to source CPUs for current-gen high-end iPhones from a US fab.

2 gens ago, sure.

Wow I did not know this and it is fantastic news, surprised Taiwan allowed this as they see chips as being the most important reason America would intervene if they were invaded.

In case of invasion, it's not that unlikely that the fabs in Taiwan get destroyed, or at least lose the ability to keep making and selling chips while the conflict is hot. In that case TSMC and Taiwan might prefer having a backup. As long as the US doesn't confiscate the Arizona fab, effectively siding with China, Taiwan would arguably have more leverage by still having something of immense strategic value to trade.

The US is not going to hold on to some working fab for some Taiwan-government-in-exile. As soon as you are out of power, even your allies generally take the time to plunder what they can.

Just like the US plundered any Ukrainian assets they could get their hands on, instead of supporting the Ukrainian government and freezing Russian assets instead?

The Ukrainian government is very much still extant

Just as the Taiwan government could continue to be, despite invasion from China.

In fact the RoC government is already in exile in Taiwan, though it seems unlikely that they would find another piece of real estate if they lost that.

In the case of invasion, the equipment within the TSMC factories will be affirmatively destroyed / sabotaged to the extent that it can't be used or studied.

I'm a China dove and I'd favor full-throated defense of Taiwan in any invasion (much more so than Ukraine) regardless of chips.

I don’t disagree with the core premise, but why much more than Ukraine?

Taiwan is a long-standing well-functioning democracy and a core ally. On the other side, I also view Russia's grievances as somewhat more legitimate than China's.

No grievances that Russia might have had can justify this devastating war, and total annihilation, and mass murder.

not the point of my comment. war is never good, whether it is Russia invading Ukraine, China invading Taiwan, or the US invading Iraq+Afghanistan - everyone should focus on finding common ground and understanding the perspectives of others

Addressing those "grievances" hasn't worked out too well for Russia. They complained about Ukraine moving in the general direction of NATO membership, and got Sweden and Finland as actual new members of NATO. Finland has a longer Russian border than Ukraine, and Sweden has a regional navy that pretty much controls the Baltic Sea. Both countries were pretty firmly neutral before the war.

and that has what, exactly, to do with the legitimacy of said grievances?

Because for all of Russia's apocalyptic rhetoric about the dire consequences of NATO membership on their borders, they've done nothing significant about Finland and Sweden actually becoming NATO members while stepping up their military spending. By comparison, a little political noise about Ukraine maybe joining NATO someday is much less of a provocation, which makes it seem unlikely to have been Russia's actual reason for invasion. And from any reasonable ethical perspective it's certainly not a legitimate one.

The NATO stuff is such propaganda, the idea has always been imperialism and to take the people and turn them into Russians.

in what sense could you _possibly_ argue this

from both legal and realpolitik lenses the Taiwan issue is fully legitimate. your country has done far worse to Cuba for far less. Even setting aside the historical context and the Chinese civil war, what is illegitimate about not wanting an antagonistic and belligerent foreign power installing weapons in an island mere miles off the mainland coast?

ASML, a Dutch firm, sells photolithography equipment to TSMC.

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