A report that Apple has apparently secured 80% of TSMCs 5nm production throughout 2021 emerges

[tech.guru]

15 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

M1 is only one of the CPU's for Apple they produce. Remember there are what 3 or 4 iPads, 3 or 4 iPhones, the Apple Watch. So there are multiple products. The iPhone has a significant market share compared to Apple's computers. Apple is also worth over 2 Trillion dollars. As much as people love to hate on Apple, being worth more than 2 Trillion makes you look like a cash cow. TSMC is making bank with Apple. 

 

 

that may be true but he stated the M1 and I dont believe the M1 is going to matter much overall as apple doesnt ship a significant amount of computers relative to the other 5nm supply demands.

 

yes, smartphones and tablets such as the A14 based on 5nm could be a strain, but thats not what he said.

On 12/21/2020 at 11:28 AM, Master Disaster said:

If TSMC is going to be churning out basically nothing but M1s then what are the chances of Apple just buying the fab outright? Surely its cheaper in the long run to buy the fab than it is to keep paying huge sums each quarter to reserve so much fab space?

 

also apple can "reserve" capacity but it depends on overall smartphone and tablet demand worldwide,

no one knows impact on sales after covid19. expectations are slowdowns..

 

 if global demand slows capacity may not be as big of issue as people expect.

[Loote]

Doesn't TSMC just have small 5nm capacity so far, making it easier for Apple to secure most of it? We wouldn't want AMD to move to 5nm if they can have only 1/10 of the chips 7nm would make.

[We Didnt_t start_the_fire]

On 12/21/2020 at 8:24 AM, valdyrgramr said:

I hope not because I plan on upgrading to a 5900x and Sapphire or PowerColor 6900 XT for rendering. 

thise are on 7  nm 

[We Didnt_t start_the_fire]

7 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Ah okay, I get it now, I was just wondering... 

 

I know not everyone one makes or needs these high end / latest tech chips, I'm still wondering about the decline, looks this is directly related to the shortages we're seeing, maybe they'll just have to make more fabs again... but prices will keep rising apparently.

 

 

Not at all surprised. Good for Apple. Waiting fot the M1X and Macbook 16 inch Pro. 

[R1TTER]

1 hour ago, Loote said:

Doesn't TSMC just have small 5nm capacity so far, making it easier for Apple to secure most of it? We wouldn't want AMD to move to 5nm if they can have only 1/10 of the chips 7nm would make.

AMD is probably the biggest TSMC customer in terms of volume, Apple undoubtedly the one who pays the most. With the upcoming zen4 & RDNA3 chips they'll be an even bigger & more important customer for the fab.

 

That's not how it works, most companies these days aren't relying on leading edge/node for their products. Yes the halo & probably the most profitable chips are on that, but a good number are on "lesser" nodes especially for Intel, QC, MTK just to name a few. AMD's also rumored to use "6nm" for some of their upcoming products, 5nm isn't really a necessity for them except servers & HPC atm.

[Dracarris]

8 hours ago, tech.guru said:

that may be true but he stated the M1 and I dont believe the M1 is going to matter much overall as apple doesnt ship a significant amount of computers relative to the other 5nm supply demands.

You make a gross misconception here. Apple is planing for the future, for M1-successors. If they continue their ARM path the way they started it, they will sell tons and tons of M1-successor chips, and they occupy much more wafer area than the mobile brothers.

8 hours ago, tech.guru said:

yes, smartphones and tablets such as the A14 based on 5nm could be a strain, but thats not what he said.

They are not a strain, their volume is huge since they are in so many devices, not only phones but also tables. Putting it all together Apple will need a crapload of 5nm silicon next year. And if Covid showed us anything so far, it is a vastly increased demand for consumer electronics, not a decline at all.

[tech.guru]

4 hours ago, Dracarris said:

You make a gross misconception here. Apple is planing for the future, for M1-successors. If they continue their ARM path the way they started it, they will sell tons and tons of M1-successor chips, and they occupy much more wafer area than the mobile brothers.

They are not a strain, their volume is huge since they are in so many devices, not only phones but also tables. Putting it all together Apple will need a crapload of 5nm silicon next year. And if Covid showed us anything so far, it is a vastly increased demand for consumer electronics, not a decline at all.

M1 is a specific model of a system on a chip based on ARM used in the latest macbook and mac mini.

there will be other system on chips with different names.

 

i will leave out your opinion that apple will "they will sell tons and tons of M1-successor chips".

Initial sales have been good, this isnt unfamiliar to most apple product releases.

 

Regarding covid-19, this is mis representation thinking the demand will help apple. the initial demand for electronics laptops or computers were due to work from home arrangements with businesses.  Apple did not do as well as others because corporates traditional shy away from apple for variety of reasons.

 

this is documented here.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2020/07/10/pc-sales-surge-during-coronavirus-crisisand-hps-the-big-winner/?sh=385f50a52275

 

 

I see nothing in M1 apple laptops that attracts corporations or businesses shift away from windows for work from home users. Most corporations have a significant investment in infrastructure around windows laptops that can be securely managed and access the network via VPN.

 

if anything, the corporations that have investment into intel apple laptops for work from home users might put off purchases for m1 apple laptops due to lack of compatibility and availability of applications on the new platform. its far more important for corporations to limit helpdesk calls rather than focus on the small boost of performance. technology groups knows the challenges of introducing new technology in the current climate (limited staff, difficult changes and high risks) and want to ensure their employees can work from home without downtime. 

 

corporations would put off M1 laptops until they could validate all the existing applications would work on the new laptops and work out migration paths if they didnt . this is all very hard to do with technical staff also working from home. while consumers may jump head first, i dont think i see businesses doing the same.

businesses were the primary driver for the increase in laptop sales as gartner has stated in the article

 

Once the initial buzz dies down, lets see what the sales continue to be.

[Bombastinator]

4 hours ago, Dracarris said:

You make a gross misconception here. Apple is planing for the future, for M1-successors. If they continue their ARM path the way they started it, they will sell tons and tons of M1-successor chips, and they occupy much more wafer area than the mobile brothers.

They are not a strain, their volume is huge since they are in so many devices, not only phones but also tables. Putting it all together Apple will need a crapload of 5nm silicon next year. And if Covid showed us anything so far, it is a vastly increased demand for consumer electronics, not a decline at all.

The electronics decline has been only in smartphones which only recently reached saturation.  They're not building first phones anymore.  Theyre building replacement phones mostly.  TVs for example, have been saturated for many many years. Color TVs were saturated by the 80’s. It changes not only the raw number of phones sold, but the type.  Customers know a lot more about what they want now.   This is why the push on security from Apple I think. 

[pas008]

1 hour ago, tech.guru said:

M1 is a specific model of a system on a chip based on ARM used in the latest

Etc 

Etc

 None of this matters though

 

Apple bought it for whatever reasons

 

Both are businesses and both only care about money and future money

[Video Beagle]

14 minutes ago, pas008 said:

future money

future money as jet packs.  ZOOM!!!!

[We Didnt_t start_the_fire]

3 hours ago, tech.guru said:

M1 is a specific model of a system on a chip based on ARM used in the latest macbook and mac mini.

there will be other system on chips with different names.

 

i will leave out your opinion that apple will "they will sell tons and tons of M1-successor chips".

Initial sales have been good, this isnt unfamiliar to most apple product releases.

 

Regarding covid-19, this is mis representation thinking the demand will help apple. the initial demand for electronics laptops or computers were due to work from home arrangements with businesses.  Apple did not do as well as others because corporates traditional shy away from apple for variety of reasons.

 

this is documented here.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2020/07/10/pc-sales-surge-during-coronavirus-crisisand-hps-the-big-winner/?sh=385f50a52275

 

 

I see nothing in M1 apple laptops that attracts corporations or businesses shift away from windows for work from home users. Most corporations have a significant investment in infrastructure around windows laptops that can be securely managed and access the network via VPN.

 

if anything, the corporations that have investment into intel apple laptops for work from home users might put off purchases for m1 apple laptops due to lack of compatibility and availability of applications on the new platform. its far more important for corporations to limit helpdesk calls rather than focus on the small boost of performance. technology groups knows the challenges of introducing new technology in the current climate (limited staff, difficult changes and high risks) and want to ensure their employees can work from home without downtime. 

 

corporations would put off M1 laptops until they could validate all the existing applications would work on the new laptops and work out migration paths if they didnt . this is all very hard to do with technical staff also working from home. while consumers may jump head first, i dont think i see businesses doing the same.

businesses were the primary driver for the increase in laptop sales as gartner has stated in the article

 

Once the initial buzz dies down, lets see what the sales continue to be.

Well, it would be more or less flat, and Silicon Valley and other tech companies will jump over it and start dev over it. Apple biggest single client is google. Granted it's not like a big percentage taken the overall in an global context taken a globaly view of the things. but it shows who's buying. If anything right now, some website performe badly to not being able to display and view due to slow loading page even with rosetta. I believe it is because the server already translated the instruction to X86 and not doing it in end terminal or it is treating it as an lower mobile device. I am more elaning to the translation, so ironically you need to do more translation. Thus resulting in handshake problem and speed limitation. The wait time is about a month from when yo order them, though I receive mine within 2 weeks.  Which doeosn't help. 

 

From me though, M1 run way smoothly than any X86 chips especially intel, the problem is not necessarily the speed, but IPC to a lesser extend, but the bandwith when you have samller online game/app that require a lot of smaller operation and draws rater than graphics. The locality of the SOC advantage can not be overstated also. Anyway, I usually have my 3 pc/mac in front of me in my office/gaming den/gmaing room/study. 

 

I do love my collection of alcohol in my office 

[dizmo]

I don't see any issue with this. They have the money, they got there first, so....sorry everyone else. Should have been quicker if you needed the allotment.

 

On 12/21/2020 at 9:28 AM, Master Disaster said:

If TSMC is going to be churning out basically nothing but M1s then what are the chances of Apple just buying the fab outright? Surely its cheaper in the long run to buy the fab than it is to keep paying huge sums each quarter to reserve so much fab space?

Highly unlikely. Why would TSMC sell it, if they're making bank with it? Wouldn't be a smart move on their end.

On 12/21/2020 at 9:31 AM, Shorty88jr said:

80%! C'mon that just insane their isn't any need to Apple to screw over the rest of the computer industry for this. Their are already enough shortages as is. I understand TSMC doesn't care because it's still cash in their pocket but I'm sick of this bull crap stock levels. Apple isn't the only company who needs to make chips. If TSMC is the only one who can do these fabs on a large scale (I know samsung exist just not at this level)then I think it's time to look into breaking up the monopoly.

It's not a monopoly. You also can't punish a company for being the most advanced, especially in a country that isn't the US.

On 12/21/2020 at 9:37 AM, Shorty88jr said:

Yep AMD might have just knocked themselves right out of existence with their lack of stock. Looks like they missed the fab allocation bus and this could put them way behind. Who cares how good the product is if you can't sell any of it.

What? Most definitely not. They're not the only ones experiencing problems getting stock, and they're products aren't exclusively on 5nm.

On 12/21/2020 at 9:41 AM, Master Disaster said:

I thought AMD has 5nm roadmapped for 2021 which would mean they are at least taping out by now. Correct me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression fab space is allocated months (if not years) in advance of when its actually needed to allow for expansion and retooling.

It won't affect AMD that much, especially since the CPUs are usually launched closer to the end of the year. It wouldn't be the first time AMD released something and it wasn't available for a few months.

On 12/21/2020 at 11:00 AM, RejZoR said:

I don't see anything wrong with this. Apple buys the manufacturing capacity. Instead of blaming Apple, go and blame TSMC for not expanding their capacities for higher demands.

You can't just snap your fingers and expand capacity. It doesn't really work like that. It takes several years to make a new fab.

On 12/21/2020 at 3:28 PM, Doobeedoo said:

Ugh, Apple of all the companies to snatch production lines... then there are consoles as well, new phones... and just THEN PC parts like CPU/GPU as well as how RAM and memory are requirements for them too. So lame. Just feels like PC parts are last in line and usually the ones that suffer price increase on some things in the end.

Well PC parts would be one of the more niche things out of the items you listed. Snapdragon is going with Samsung. So there isn't much of an issue there.

18 hours ago, Donut417 said:

FAB's are expensive to operate. Ask AMD about that. They had SHIT loads of Fabs back in the day and that part of the reason they went in to the shitter. You know that company Global Foundries? Thats pretty much AMD's Fabs, they had to sell them off. Building FAB's takes years. For what Apple is doing, its probably better to use TSMC or Samsung FABs. 

The fabs were far from the only reason AMD was doing horribly. Really, having a revenue stream like that should have been a plus, not a negative.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

You can't just snap your fingers and expand capacity. It doesn't really work like that. It takes several years to make a new fab.

Well it's not like TSMC isn't already progressively increasing 5nm capacity going by their existing projections of demand. No idea if this 80% figure is true or not, or 80% of only already unallocated capacity but regardless I doubt TSMC production capacity by the end of 2021 is going to be the same as it is now.

[dizmo]

23 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Well it's not like TSMC isn't already progressively increasing 5nm capacity going by their existing projections of demand. No idea if this 80% figure is true or not, or 80% of only already unallocated capacity but regardless I doubt TSMC production capacity by the end of 2021 is going to be the same as it is now.

Right. Like I said. An entire year isn't a snap of the fingers.

[Doobeedoo]

6 hours ago, dizmo said:

Well PC parts would be one of the more niche things out of the items you listed. Snapdragon is going with Samsung. So there isn't much of an issue there.

I wouldn't really call PC parts a niche in general, the PC requirement is rising and all time high.

[Donut417]

9 hours ago, dizmo said:

only reason AMD was doing horribly

No the fucked themselves when they bought ATI. That was a bad idea. While it might work out for them in the end. If you take in to account all the Fabs and ATI, it really is what mess them up. 

[dizmo]

9 hours ago, Doobeedoo said:

I wouldn't really call PC parts a niche in general, the PC requirement is rising and all time high.

It's high right now because of COVID. It is not at an all time high, and it's been going down year over year for almost a decade.

6 hours ago, Donut417 said:

No the fucked themselves when they bought ATI. That was a bad idea. While it might work out for them in the end. If you take in to account all the Fabs and ATI, it really is what mess them up. 

I'd say it has more to do with the FX series and the products that followed. Which, when looking at their stock pricing, makes sense.

[Arika]

7 minutes ago, dizmo said:

7 hours ago, Donut417 said:

No the fucked themselves when they bought ATI. That was a bad idea. While it might work out for them in the end. If you take in to account all the Fabs and ATI, it really is what mess them up. 

I'd say it has more to do with the FX series and the products that followed. Which, when looking at their stock pricing, makes sense.

[dizmo]

7 minutes ago, Arika S said:

If anything, I'd say the GPU division kept AMD afloat while they sorted the CPU division.

[Donut417]

33 minutes ago, dizmo said:

say it has more to do with the FX series and the products that followed. Which, when looking at their stock pricing, makes sense.

When they bought ATI they were then in two competitive markets. They had to fund CPU and GPU development. So they over extended themselves. 

[Doobeedoo]

2 hours ago, dizmo said:

It's high right now because of COVID. It is not at an all time high, and it's been going down year over year for almost a decade.

Wasn't even talking about COVID but in general. What do you mean it's going down yearly for last decade. Quite opposite actually.

[dizmo]

40 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

Wasn't even talking about COVID but in general. What do you mean it's going down yearly for last decade. Quite opposite actually.

PC sales? No. There's stats for it. It's declining.

[Donut417]

43 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

Wasn't even talking about COVID but in general. What do you mean it's going down yearly for last decade. Quite opposite actually.

The reason people keep saying PC's are going away is because sales are in a slump. Sure, you cant find current gen GPU's or AMD CPU's but thats because of the gaming boom and work from home boom due to Covid. Lots of people keep their computers a lot longer. Some people only use mobile devices. Like my aunt has a iPad, and thats all she needs. My sister used to write college papers using Google Docs and her phone. PC's are no longer king like they once were. Gaming is niche. Most PC sales are probably enterprise users, thats where Microsoft makes its money. But the average Joe blow is not necessarily buying new PC's.  So now you have PC's (Windows, Linux and Macs), Phones, Tablets all competing in the market. 

[Loote]

I am actually curious how much of the pc sales decline was due to actual decline, and how much was because Intel's 7th gen i5 wasn't much better than 2nd gen one, and both are enough for your average web browsing even today. Laptops on the other hand did progress much more, not to mention they are just much less reliable making you have to replace it more often.

[Doobeedoo]

15 hours ago, dizmo said:

PC sales? No. There's stats for it. It's declining.

Which stats, pre-builds, individual components builds? Because I doubt it, I've seen everywhere more people talk about it and are getting into it.