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Opinion: Apple Should Have Gone With Intel Instead of TSMC

Posted by Unknown on from the smaller-better-way-more-expensive dept.

itwbennett writes "Apple is planning to have its ARM processors manufactured by TSMC — a move that blogger Andy Patrizio thinks is a colossal mistake. Not only is TSMC already over-extended and having trouble making deadlines. But Intel was clearly the better choice: 'Intel may be struggling in mobility with the Atom processors, but Intel does yields and manufacturing process migration better than anyone,' says Patrizio. 'While TSMC wrestles with 28nm and looking to 20nm, Intel is at 22nm now and moving to 14nm for next year. This is important; the smaller the fabrication design, the less power used.'"

6 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. Poor premise by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sounds like a silly premise. Who says Intel would even want to do it? Why would Intel want to go back into ARM fabrication when they are trying to beat ARM chips with Atom?

    1. Re:Poor premise by BasilBrush · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The silliest premise is that some blogger knows more about the issues with different chip fabs than Apple does. For that blogger to say Apple made a mistake, before we've seen any results from the deal? Stupid. Simply click bait.

    2. Re:Poor premise by iamhassi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The blogger's entire article is is based on hearsay, rumors and speculation. No quotes from Apple, TSMC, Intel or any other company he mentioned in the article. No facts at all in the article. Maybe Intel turned Apple down? Maybe we should trust the judgement of a billion dollar company like Apple over a silly blogger's opinion? I'm sure there's many great reasons Apple didn't choose Intel.

      --
      my karma will be here long after I'm gone
  2. Intel was not an option by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Intel's high end fabs are tasked to capacity with their own chips near as I know. They are probably not interested in taking on outside orders for ARM chips.

    Now I suppose Apple could switch over to x86, but I doubt they'd be willing to do that given that they own a big stake in ARM. Also at this point Intel doesn't have x86 processors suitable for phones. They may make such a thing in the future but they do not now.

    So ya, Intel would be the best option... if they were an option. They have fabs above and beyond anyone else, they spend billions in R&D on it and as such are nearly always a node ahead and have good yields. However, their fabs are for them. Their 22nm fabs are busily cranking out Haswell and Ivy Bridge chips. They are not for rent for cranking out ARM chips, unless something has changed since last I looked.

  3. Re:Ultrabook II? by alen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ultrabooks have been around since the 90's. only thing that changed is that intel is now making decent ultra low voltage CPU's and they use flash memory instead of HDD. otherwise Sony used to make some PHB happy laptops in 2000 and 2001 that were thin. PHB's loved them for travel

  4. Re:Ultrabook II? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apple nor anyone else wants to pay Intel enough to go back to fabbing arm cpu's. they made some top of the line arm's back in the day, but the real money in arm wasn't top end but the bottom end and they got better things to do with their fabs.

    Do you seriously think Apple is not fronting the cash for TSMC's upgraded fabs? Paying cash up front to suppliers so that it can get first access to the newest parts is one of Apple's key strategies and it's the reason Tim Cook got to be the CEO.

    If you ask me, Apple either knows something we don't about TSMC, or it wants to build TSMC up as a strategic move to counter Samsung, Qualcomm, Intel, and other companies.