[lukan]

But wasn't the reason they split with Samsung because they copied the iphone in the perspective of Jobs (to which he reacted with thermonuclear threats)?

They did had the expertise building it after all. What would happen, if TSMC now would build a M1 clone? I doubt this is a way anyone wants to go, but it seems a implied threat to me that is calculated in.

[thewebguyd]

Job's thermonuclear threats were about Android & Google, not Samsung because Schmidt was on Apple's board during the development of Android.

> "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

The falling out with Samsung was related, but more about the physical look of the phone

[wtetzner]

> because it’s a stolen product

This is funny coming from Jobs.

[asciii]

> good artists copy great artists steal - pablo picasso

- steve jobs

[scyzoryk_xyz]

Oh shit I didn't know he was on the board, I thought the story was just that they decided to be a competitor.

So, Schmidt had inside knowledge of before following Apple into the smartphone category? That makes the vengeful fury less unhinged.

Sounds like those $40b did not end up running out.

[thewebguyd]

> So, Schmidt had inside knowledge of before following Apple into the smartphone category?

That's the theory/assumption. Android started as an OS for blackberry-style phones with physical keyboard, non touch screens.

Almost as soon as the iPhone launch, Schmidt left the board, and Android pivoted to a multi-touch interface almost immediately, and a year later the HTC Dream came out.

I don't think anyone has any real proof of wrongdoing but the timing is certainly suspicious

[mr_toad]

If Samsung (or any other fab) were to make Apple chips they wouldn’t learn anything that a good microscope couldn’t already tell them.

Samsung still makes the displays and the cameras for most iPhones. They continued to do business even while engaged in legal action. That they are still competitors wont stop them doing business when it suits them. Business doesn’t care about pride or loyalty; only money.

[lukan]

I believe just locking at a chip, does not enable you to to make such a chip, otherwise china would not be behind.

TSMC already makes them in their labs. They could tweak a few things, claim it is novel and just sell to the competition. (Apple would fight back of course with all they have and TSMC reputation would take damage)

[bluGill]

Looking at a chip makes it easier, but it is still millions (or billions in the case of a CPU) of dollars for engineers to figure it all out. That doesn't get you to understand what was done or why so 2-3 years latter you can make that chip but they have now moved on to a faster/better version and you are behind. And of course if you try this Apple (or whoever you copy) will have plenty of engineers who can look at your chip and in just a few hours decide there is enough to have lawyers sue you for the copy.

China already has plenty of engineers who can make a chip, and experience with making CPUs. ARM licenses a lot of useful things for making a CPU (I don't know what). They would be better off in the long run making the chips they all ready understand better. Which is something they are doing. It takes longer and costs more, but because they understand they can also customize the next chip for something they think is good - if they are right they can be ahead of everyone else.

What China is lacking is the fabs to make a CPU. They have made good progress in building them, but there is a lot of technology that isn't in the chip that is needed to make a chip.

[orbifold]

It took cerebras less than a billion to get to where they are now, CPUs are not that hard. You would probably be able to reverse engineer them for ~100 million

[fragmede]

Doesn't seem likely, TBH. Nevermind the legal agreements they would be violating, TSMC fabs Qualcomm's Snapdragon line of ARM processors. The M1 is good, but not that good (it's a couple generations old by this point, for one). Samsung had a phone line of their own to put it in as well. TSMC does not.

[DeathArrow]

>They did had the expertise building it after all. What would happen, if TSMC now would build a M1 clone

What do you mean by cloning? An exact copy of Apple SOC? What would that be useful for?

There are already other ARM SOCs that are as performant as Apple's, according to benchmarks.