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by CGMthrowaway 153 days ago
TSMC holds the real power. Apple’s stability and Nvidia’s cash both matter but AI demand is distorting the entire semiconductor ecosystem. There are no easy exits. Building fabs, switching suppliers or waiting out the cycle all carry massive risk.

In the long run, competition (where via Intel, Samsung or geopolitical diversification) is the only path that benefits anyone other than TSMC
1 comments
MangoCoffee 153 days ago
Trust comes first. That's why TSMC is a pure play fab. Unless there's something that can 100% guarantee protection for fabless players like Apple, no one will trust Samsung or Intel.

Fabless players' IPs are their entire business.

It'll be hard to trust Intel given Intel's past behavior, especially against AMD.

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reverserdev 153 days ago
Hasn't Apple recently made a deal with Intel?
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thephyber 153 days ago
Trust is not binary — it is a spectrum.

Anyone making a claim that trust will be 0% based on a single thing is obviously oversimplifying the situation. Trust is built on behavior, reputation, time, repeatability, etc.

Trust is subjective and relative. If Alice doesn’t trust Eve, that doesn’t automatically mean that Bob doesn’t trust Eve. That usually requires both Alice and Bob to similar experiences or Bob must have a trust relationship with Alice.

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bluGill 153 days ago
Trust also changes over time. One CEO change and a company can change overnight thus causing all trust to evaporate. Normally CEOs are aware of this and don't change things and so trust transfers, but one mistake and you lose trust. It takes a lot to build back trust, but a few years of proving worthy of trust and it starts to come back. If your competitors violates trust in the mean time customers are more likely to risk you, and if you prove trustworthy the customers are likely to stay.

There are other factors than trust as well - the US government really wants intel fabs to take off and they may be applying pressure that we are not aware of. It could well be that Apple is willing to risk Intel because the US government will buy a lot of macs/iphones but only if they CPU is made in the US. (this would be a smart thing for the US todo for geopolitical reasons)

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