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.

There are rumours that Intel might have won some business from them in 2 years. I could totally see Apple turning to Intel for the Mac chips, since they're much lower volume. I know it sounds crazy, we just got rid of Intel, but I'm talking using Intel as a fab, not going back to x86. Those are done.

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lukan 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

But wasn't the reason they split with Samsung because they copied the iphone in the perspective of Jobs (to which he reacted with thermonuclear threats)?

They did had the expertise building it after all. What would happen, if TSMC now would build a M1 clone? I doubt this is a way anyone wants to go, but it seems a implied threat to me that is calculated in.

	▲	thewebguyd 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Job's thermonuclear threats were about Android & Google, not Samsung because Schmidt was on Apple's board during the development of Android. > "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this." The falling out with Samsung was related, but more about the physical look of the phone
	▲	fragmede 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Doesn't seem likely, TBH. Nevermind the legal agreements they would be violating, TSMC fabs Qualcomm's Snapdragon line of ARM processors. The M1 is good, but not that good (it's a couple generations old by this point, for one). Samsung had a phone line of their own to put it in as well. TSMC does not.

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chippiewill an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I thought Intel was too far behind on their process nodes?

	▲	wtallis an hour ago \| parent [-]
		At the end of the month, laptops with Intel's latest processors will start shipping. These use Intel's 18A process for the CPU chiplet. That makes Intel the first fab to ship a process using backside power delivery. There's no third party testing yet to verify if Intel is still far behind TSMC when power, performance and die size are all considered, but Intel is definitely making progress, and their execs have been promising more for the future, such as their 14A process.