[bee_rider]

I’m not sure Intel and Samsung are behind TSMC to the extent that switching to their CPUs would be, like, catastrophic. There’s a big advantage to using the newest node because people who buy iPhone want to be assured that their iPhones were made using the best, newest tech. But a 2 year old iPhone is not totally junk, it actually is still a much more powerful computer than almost anybody really needs.

TSMC has huge value, their R&D is hugely important. But if they vanished overnight, your G7 nation wouldn’t start to starve or anything.

[re-thc]

> I’m not sure Intel and Samsung are behind TSMC

Intel is trying to catch up but Samsung just has no idea. Samsung spent years poaching, merging and sniffing trade secrets to survive.

Problem with Intel is that most of it is Intel specific (still)

[wkat4242]

Also, Samsung's fab is genuinely behind. Exynos and Samsung-built tensor chips are consistently hotter and more power-hungry than Snapdragons. It's pretty sad for us in Europe because we pay the same for our phones but get a worse product. We also miss out on features like 5G mmWave and MST (though I believe that's now gone from the US too)

[The_Colonel]

Samsung is consistently behind in the sense it's difficult to compete for them in the high end mobile chips. But this difference is virtually meaningless in the strategic sense. Samsung can produce any capability TSMC can. The loss of TSMC would be strategically important only in the lost capacity.

[Iulioh]

Thank got at least the new Ultras have only snapdragon

I had a exynoss s22 and my experience was miserable, in and out the repair center.

[wkat4242]

Yeah I don't like big phones so it's more difficult for me. I have an S23 now which I'm really happy about. I just don't know what to do when it breaks because the S24 went back to exynos :(

[bee_rider]

Why’d you cut off the second half of my sentence? It contained the important caveat, really the main point of the thing—I was responding to the “if I were a G7 nation leader I’d be worried” sentiment.

Intel and Samsung are indisputably behind TSMC, but not in a way that would, like, risk social cohesion or something like that if we had to switch to them.