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Comment by MangoCoffee | Hacker News Reader

>Apple has used both Samsung and TSMC for its chips in the past. Until the A7 it was Samsung, A8 was TSMC, and the A9 was dual-sourced by both! Apple is used to switching between suppliers fairly often for a tech company; it's not that it's too hard for them to switch fab, it's that TSMC is the only competitive fab right now.

This is false. Samsung competes with Apple on smartphones. Apple even filed a lawsuit against Samsung over smartphones.

Apple moved to TSMC because how can you trust someone to make chips for you containing your phone's core IP?

>I could totally see Apple turning to Intel for the Mac chips

I could totally see Apple will be wary turning their core IPs to Intel

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Which but is false? Samsung definitely did manufacture Apple chips.

Common manufacturer Samsung[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC

Apple A6 which is fabricated with Samsung 32 nm HKMG (Hi dielectric K, Metal Gate) CMOS process

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple+A6+Teardown/10528

TSMC holds the real power. Apple’s stability and Nvidia’s cash both matter but AI demand is distorting the entire semiconductor ecosystem. There are no easy exits. Building fabs, switching suppliers or waiting out the cycle all carry massive risk.

In the long run, competition (where via Intel, Samsung or geopolitical diversification) is the only path that benefits anyone other than TSMC

Trust comes first. That's why TSMC is a pure play fab. Unless there's something that can 100% guarantee protection for fabless players like Apple, no one will trust Samsung or Intel.

Fabless players' IPs are their entire business.

It'll be hard to trust Intel given Intel's past behavior, especially against AMD.

Hasn't Apple recently made a deal with Intel?

Trust is not binary — it is a spectrum.

Anyone making a claim that trust will be 0% based on a single thing is obviously oversimplifying the situation. Trust is built on behavior, reputation, time, repeatability, etc.

Trust is subjective and relative. If Alice doesn’t trust Eve, that doesn’t automatically mean that Bob doesn’t trust Eve. That usually requires both Alice and Bob to similar experiences or Bob must have a trust relationship with Alice.

Trust also changes over time. One CEO change and a company can change overnight thus causing all trust to evaporate. Normally CEOs are aware of this and don't change things and so trust transfers, but one mistake and you lose trust. It takes a lot to build back trust, but a few years of proving worthy of trust and it starts to come back. If your competitors violates trust in the mean time customers are more likely to risk you, and if you prove trustworthy the customers are likely to stay.

There are other factors than trust as well - the US government really wants intel fabs to take off and they may be applying pressure that we are not aware of. It could well be that Apple is willing to risk Intel because the US government will buy a lot of macs/iphones but only if they CPU is made in the US. (this would be a smart thing for the US todo for geopolitical reasons)

Then why are they switching from Sony to Samsung for custom camera sensors for the next iPhone?

Why do they keep using Samsung for their customized screens despite LG and Chinese competitors being competitive?

Does Apple spend R&D on iPhone screens like they do Apple Silicon? What's that got to do with what we're talking about regarding iPhone's core IP (Apple's own chip, the most important IP from Apple)?

Apple has run micro LED development for several years

> Does Apple spend R&D on iPhone screens like they do Apple Silicon

yes

> What's that got to do with what we're talking about regarding iPhone's core IP

The iPhone's core IP is iOS.

Collaboration on display and camera development leak major future milestones. Far more consumers care about cameras and displays than the CPU. Just like the camera and display the CPU IP is also protected by patents.

wait til you find out who supplies iPhone screens.

Does Apple spend R&D on iPhone screens like they do Apple Silicon? What's that got to do with what we're talking about regarding iPhone's core IP (Apple's own chip, the most important IP from Apple)?

Apple owns a few patients on micro LED display. Those look like R&D to my untrained eye.

https://www.ledinside.com/node/31822

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