Apple may be leveraging its market power to shift production contracts away from Samsung to a greater extent than currently believed.
A new rumor in Taiwan suggests that Apple could be turning to TSMC as the main manufacturer and supplier for its ARM-based processors.
Following the conclusion of a legal battle that had Apple walk away with more than $1 billion in damages paid by Samsung, a production switch may be the far greater financial blow, given current estimates from IHS that Apple will be selling 149 million iPhones and close to 60 million iPads this year. According to Digitimes, it appears that if TSMC can prove it has what it takes to produce Apple's chips, it may be able to grab the lion's share of the business.
It is unlikely, however, that Apple will be making the same mistake again and rely on a single source for one of the key components of its devices. Just like the company diversified its memory supplier base, it would not be surprising if the company did the same with its processor. It is not a secret that Globalfoundries has been courting Apple for some time now to get into play as well. Digitimes noted that if TSMC is in fact in talks with Apple, the company's 16nm FinFET process to be Apple's most likely choice.
At this time, Samsung remains the sole production company of the iPhone and iPad processors.
In related news : TSMC denied Apple a contact that would allow them exclusive use of the full production capacity of their fab's. Because of this Apple is now stuck between a rock and a hard place as they pissed off Samsung, and TSMC cannot meet their demands without turning away other customers, which they are unwilling to do at this time.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-29/apple-qualcomm-spurned-in-bids-for-exclusive-tsmc-chip-supply.html
In related news : TSMC denied Apple a contact that would allow them exclusive use of the full production capacity of their fab's. Because of this Apple is now stuck between a rock and a hard place as they pissed off Samsung, and TSMC cannot meet their demands without turning away other customers, which they are unwilling to do at this time.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-29/apple-qualcomm-spurned-in-bids-for-exclusive-tsmc-chip-supply.html
Apple really could be in trouble global foundrys wont touch the ARM race right now, they have issues at 28nm and below, TMSc also makes x86 pricessors at tye same FAB.
That's a lot more than a mere billion.
Not to mention if there is a decrease in quality or a decrease in supply due to sourcing problems, which might even tarnish the brand.
I don't know how Apple always acts like an arrogant litigious cry baby and people think the brand represents cool laid back people.
Apple definitely should open their own plants. Open them in the USA. Create some American jobs.
Will they? I doubt it.... ;o)
If they did that it might even begin to make sense why their products cost ludicrously more than other comparable products. Their profit margins would more than allow this, and their cash reserves would too. I would actually maybe start to respect Apple if they did this, but I would still never buy one of their products.
semiconductor fabrication is no easy task. All of the major manufacturers have been in business for between 25 and 50 years. Electrical engineering is outside of Apple's core competency. This is part of the reason that they only adopt proven technologies. Seeing as they can't even get the app store to work properly without screwing stuff up I doubt that they're itching to try their hand at fabrication.
Why? Because of hard, cold numbers. Samsung earns a ton of money off the semiconductor business, and the iPhone sales are an important part of those numbers. Samsung probably stands to lose more than they would gain if they dumped Apple.
Perhaps they should have seen that before the Samsung lawsuit. Apple, just another myopic company... But, money talks, and everything has a price, and Apple has the money to pay. This could get interesting. Their cash reserves will cause them to linger on and keep making the news. But... being a fab-less company will hurt them. Just as companies like nVidia learn, so will Apple, hopefully.
I would think that the risk analysis would need to show that Samsung would need to be able to show that the money made by continuing to build for Apple would make up for any losses from the lawsuit.
Yup. Don't bite the hand that feeds. The only tech company in the world which can -- without recourse -- say "hehehehehhe fak u!" is Intel. Intel is vertically integrated and has the software, OEM, and retail markets eating out of the palm of their hand. Not even IBM could get away with that.
If Samsung tells Apple to EABOD then that means that Apple will have to spend the time not only finding a new supplier but also negotiating a contact, settling licensing issues (there's no telling if Samsung has any stake in the Ax series SoCs), spinning up their other fabs (it's not an overnight process) and handling the much more complicated logistics. Combine this with the impending LTE lawsuits from HTC and Samsung and the iPhone 5 could be in for a bit of a rocky ride.
Samsung does make it's own phones that are better selling than Apple's. Worse comes to worse, Samsung populates it's own fabs, with it's own products and cuts out the middleman. They become as vertically integrated as Intel.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120914PD209.html
Apple : Screw you Samsung, you aren't the only company that can make hardware.
*Runs over to TSMC*
Hey guys, can you make the hardware for our phones?
TSMC : Dude, we are already using 90% of our production line for other companies. You can't expect us to print out over 25 million processors in a month time.
Apple's marketing team : Okay we just been dumped by Samsung and there is no company that can reach the numbers we need in the quality we need them at.. what should our headlines be?
"Apple dumps Samsung."
Apple : Good! Now we don't look like the failures.