[MBCook]

Not all of Apple‘s chips need to be fabbed at the smallest size, those could certainly go elsewhere. I’m sure they already do.

Is there anyone who can match TSMC at this point for the top of the line M or A chips? Even if Intel was ready and Apple wanted to would they be able to supply even 10% of what Apple needs for the yearly iPhone supply?

[throwaway2037]

    > Not all of Apple‘s chips need to be fabbed at the smallest size, those could certainly go elsewhere.

When I saw that TSMC continues to run old fabs, I immediately thought about this idea. I am sure when Apple is designing various chips for their products, they design for a specific node based on available capacity. Not all chips need to be the smallest node size.

Another thing: I am seeing a bunch of comments here alluding to Apple changing fabs. While I am not an expert, it is surely much harder than people understand. The precise process of how transistors are made is different in each fab. I highly doubt it is trivial to change fabs.

[MBCook]

My understanding, and I’m a layman, is it basically requires making new masks. And that’s not trivial.

I guess you’d be doing that anyway with a brand new chip. But still probably easier to work with the tools/fab you know well.

I suppose you’d have to do it just switching nodes at TSMC. Which is why the A13 (or whatever) probably never moves to smaller nodes.

Sometimes Apple updates the chip in a product that doesn’t seem to need it, like the AppleTV. I wonder if it’s because the old node is going away and it’s easier to just use a newer chip that was designed for the newer node.