I wonder how long it will be until Apple is running their own fabs, or at least diversifies away from heavily relying on TSMC. Has anyone seen news to this effect?
I think it is more likely that TSMC is diversifying away from building only in Taiwan. They have the expertise. Apple's expertise is engineering, design, and marketing.
They don't own their own factories because that is not their expertise, and they probably don't want to bring that in house.
Designing their own chips in-house wasn't "their expertise" either, a few years ago. You won't expand into other areas unless you at least make it a priority and try.
Getting into semiconductors is probably substantially more complicated. Only a handful of companies are able to do it well and they have bene at it for decades.
I think a few years ago there were rumblings about a 2/3nm Apple fab being made in Berlin, but I've heard nothing about it since, so it may be a lie.
That being said; the other commenter is right. If Apple had to release the M1 on 10nm or even 7nm, they would end up sacrificing at least >200% performance-per-watt; a death blow to either the battery life or performance. Apple's move to dominate the 5nm supply was another demonstration of their manipulation of supply chains akin to their iPod hard drives. There are indeed interesting parts of Apple Silicon, but the performance is driven wholly by their exclusive 5nm ARM cores.
It is getting tiring to hear the same lies over and over again on this site. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. Show me a clear proof that Apple's performance per watt is reliant to a 200% improvement on the 5nm process. Perhaps I can point you in the direction of the A13 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A13), Apple's last 7nm chip. Apple claims their subsequent 5nm node (A14) is 40% more performant than that one.
7nm is considerably less dense than 5nm, since it's increased size compounds across two dimensions. That being said, A13 was indeed on 7nm, as well as the A14x they put in the dev kit. I don't think those benchmark numbers would be competitive against 3D Cache Ryzen or current Alder Lake offerings. Furthermore, I question how far Apple will be able to push Apple Silicon. As we've seen with the M2, when Apple can't get a clean node upgrade, they're forced to increase heat/power like Intel and AMD so they can scale their performance. With the upgrade to 3nm being much less dramatic than 10nm -> 5nm (and with Intel catching up rapidly), Apple is under extreme pressure to engineer themselves out of this situation. It may not be technically feasible.
Apple is spending $275B to advance Chinese manufacturing.[0]
They can easily afford 1/10th of that to build a fab that's ready in five years right here in the US if they wanted to. (Las Vegas is ideal, no natural disasters of any kind.)
Hell, they could write a check and buy Intel outright.
Las Vegas is currently having their water coming from the Colorado River (and reservoirs fed by it) limited, along with several other states and Mexico. If I were a betting man, I'd bet it will get worse in the near future.
Getting far off topic here, but Las Vegas is one of the safest water supplies.
There is the often quoted statistic that Las Vegas gets 90% of its water from Lake Mead/Colorado River. But Las Vegas reclaims and recycles 99% of consumed water and pumps it back into the lake via the Lake Mead Wash.
Because they get 99 return-flow credits for every 100 gallons, any draw limits from the watershed will have minimal impact.
Las Vegas also has a large groundwater table that supplies 25% of its peak summer demand.
As a last resort, the Casinos will never let the city run dry. While they only consume 6-7% of the cities water, they depend on their employees being able to live in the city to keep operating.
Why would they? They identified the best semiconductor manufacturer, and gave them so much business they basically do whatever Apple wants, and prioritize their capacity over everyone else.
They don't own their own factories because that is not their expertise, and they probably don't want to bring that in house.