Semiconductor manufacturing is not an incremental step for Apple. It's an entirely new kind of vertical. They do not have the resources to do this. If they could they would have by now.

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boredatoms 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They could buy global foundaries and pour in a pile of cash, 5 years later they’d have something useful

Or they could buy out Intel and sell off their cpu design division

	▲	bgnn 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		In that case they would have just burnt cash for 5 years and didn't have anything to show for it.
	▲	alt227 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		If it was that simple, they would have done it.

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JKCalhoun 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How do they not have the resources? Certainly they have the cash resources.

At this point it would be corporate suicide if they were not outlining a strategy to own their own fab(s).

	▲	bob1029 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. plans to spend a record of up to $56 billion this year to feed the world’s insatiable appetite for chips, as it grapples with pressure to build more factories outside Taiwan, especially in the U.S. [0] Apple has less cash available than TSMC plans to burn this year. TSMC is not spending 50 billion dollars just because it's fun to do so. This is how much it takes just to keep the wheels on the already existing bus. Starting from zero is a non-starter. It just cannot happen anymore. So, no one in their right mind would sell Apple their leading edge foundry at a discount either. There was a time when companies like Apple could have done this. That time was 15+ years ago. It's way too late now. [0]: https://www.wsj.com/business/earnings/tsmc-ends-2025-with-a-...

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zvqcMMV6Zcr 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Designing CPUs also wasn't their core business and they did it anyway. Apple probably won't care that much about price hikes but if they ever feel TSMC can't guarantee steady supply then all bets are off.

I wonder what will happen in future when we get closer to the physical "wall". Will it allow other fabs to catch up or the opposite will happen, and even small improvements will be values by customers?