TSMC to Manufacture Apple Silicon for Arm-Based Macs

[AleksandarK]

Apple has recently announced its transition from Intel-based Mac computers to custom Arm-based Apple silicon equipped Macs. The speculations for such transition have lasted a few years and we finally got that confirmation. So the question remains: who will manufacture Apple's custom processors for Arm-based Macs? The answer is pretty simple. It is TSMC who will again become Apple's main supplier of silicon. With its broad offerings of the latest silicon nodes, it was no brainer choice for Apple. Combined with the history of collaboration with Apple, TSMC was the only choice for new Apple silicon. Whatever the company will use the new 5 nm node or use the "old" 7 nm one, the question remains.

TSMC expects to see huge orders from Apple in the second half of 2021, for Apple silicon, so Apple will become perhaps the biggest customer of TSMC. It is also worth pointing out that Apple will be using ASMedia's USB controller for Arm-based Macs, as the original report suggests.


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[bonehead123]

So now I guess "TSMC" stands for "The Smartest Mo-Fo'ing Company", hehehehe ......

Maybe the next headline will be:

Apple buys TSMC, cause they rulez, all other chip mfgr's droolz..

 

[Caring1]

Forced to drop Huawei orders, they were probably over a barrel when Apple approached them and made an offer they couldn't refuse.

 

[RandallFlagg]

Forced to drop Huawei orders, they were probably over a barrel when Apple approached them and made an offer they couldn't refuse.

Not likely.

TSMCs 5nm / 7nm fabs are in very high demand, so any loss there would not be a question of filling the void - but how quickly they can tape out a product. There are plenty of customers. These are the nodes Apple would be wanting.

Huawei's loss may have impacted their 16+ nm nodes more. While we focus on the higher end Kirin 960 and such, for the most part Huawei's volume products are very low end phones. In fact, to varying degrees that statement holds true of pretty much every phone maker other than Apple. With the replacement of the iPhone 8 with the new SE, I believe every single brand new iPhone that Apple sells has a 7nm SoC. I'd bet even Samsung is mostly selling phones with 10-28nm SoCs, their flagships just don't sell in volume like Apple.