Thank god Apple has been putting their eggs in their home-woven ARM basket. Now I just wish that they had a CEO who was above golden-trophy ass-kissing.
Does it being "designed in California" but "made in Taiwan" really make a difference? If Taiwan was to be invaded and TSMC follows through with their threat of destroying all of the fabs, Apple's home-woven basket wouldn't be worth much at all
Besides missing the point, this is a bad argument.
ASML manufactures the machines that TSMC uses to produce chips - they have an even more critical and irreplaceable role in chip production than Taiwan does. ASML is headquartered in Veldhoven, NL. That would absolutely affect chip production - no new nodes, no replacement parts. There are other critical technologies for semiconductor manufacturing made in USA as well.
ARM also produces core reference implementations. Most ARM licensees’ licenses only allow them to use those in a slightly modified form.
What you’re talking about is an ARM IP license, which allow the company to build their own implementation of the standard. Only a few companies have those and, of those, even fewer actually use it. Apple is one of those that does.
Apple still holds the license to the arm arches/designs they've used. There's enough customization applied that I'd guess Apple could function absent ARM, even if it's not the ideal scenario for them.
Plus Britain and Japan are both somewhere between close allies and client states. Nobody cares if we license from them.
Apple is also not a regular ARM licensee. They have a special deal because they were a very early investor when they wanted a chip to power the Newton back in the day.
No they don’t. I mean, that is why they have that license (though PA Semi, the company they absorbed that develops their cores, also brought one along with them); but it’s not a special or unique license. Nvidia, Qualcomm, AMD, etc all have the same license.
Apple is near unique only in that they’ve pretty much never used reference implementations (since the PA Semi acquisition, at least) from ARM and stick to their pure bespoke microarchitectures. But they’re not the only company that could.
I hate everything that Cook is doing to kiss up to Trump and he did something similar during the first administration by letting Trump brag about final assembly of low selling Mac Pros was happening in the US.
But this is the country that the US wants (said as a born and bred US citizen) these are the results of it. Every CEO is kissing Trumps ass because that’s the only way you get ahead in the US now.
The media, the other two branches, colleges, tech companies etc have all bent a knee and bribed the President in one way or the other.
I think Tim is only kissing ass because the desk trinket is cheap and the investment will take time to materialise, probably after this presidency. And Apple will be around longer than trump will be alive.
It doesn't need to get officially nationalized. Trump is already using tariffs to essentially direct large businesses. It's already been reported that Trump is requiring TSMC to take a 49% stake in Intel for tariff relief.
Why would TSMC do this? Companies want the best chips and they can only get them from TSMC. If there isn't an alternative and building the necessary infrastructure in the US takes too long the Tarif is useless.
Thank god Apple has been putting their eggs in their home-woven ARM basket. Now I just wish that they had a CEO who was above golden-trophy ass-kissing.
Does it being "designed in California" but "made in Taiwan" really make a difference? If Taiwan was to be invaded and TSMC follows through with their threat of destroying all of the fabs, Apple's home-woven basket wouldn't be worth much at all
If the US or the Netherlands were being invaded that world also wreak havoc, but how is that related to the links between China and Intel's CEO?
Invading the US or Netherlands would not impact chip production. How are you not able to grasp that?
Besides missing the point, this is a bad argument.
ASML manufactures the machines that TSMC uses to produce chips - they have an even more critical and irreplaceable role in chip production than Taiwan does. ASML is headquartered in Veldhoven, NL. That would absolutely affect chip production - no new nodes, no replacement parts. There are other critical technologies for semiconductor manufacturing made in USA as well.
They are partially made in San Diego.
Partly home-made. Arm Holdings is British-based, but owned by Softbank Group (Japanese).
Arm makes a specification and standard (the ARM ISA).
Apple licenses that and develops their own chip, which is then manufactured by TSMC.
So I guess if Intel dies the US will still have a few good CPU design firms, but no manufacturing
Also note that Foxconn (China) assembles the iPhones
Eg https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-factory-foxconn...
ARM also produces core reference implementations. Most ARM licensees’ licenses only allow them to use those in a slightly modified form.
What you’re talking about is an ARM IP license, which allow the company to build their own implementation of the standard. Only a few companies have those and, of those, even fewer actually use it. Apple is one of those that does.
Apple still holds the license to the arm arches/designs they've used. There's enough customization applied that I'd guess Apple could function absent ARM, even if it's not the ideal scenario for them.
Plus Britain and Japan are both somewhere between close allies and client states. Nobody cares if we license from them.
Apple is also not a regular ARM licensee. They have a special deal because they were a very early investor when they wanted a chip to power the Newton back in the day.
No they don’t. I mean, that is why they have that license (though PA Semi, the company they absorbed that develops their cores, also brought one along with them); but it’s not a special or unique license. Nvidia, Qualcomm, AMD, etc all have the same license.
Apple is near unique only in that they’ve pretty much never used reference implementations (since the PA Semi acquisition, at least) from ARM and stick to their pure bespoke microarchitectures. But they’re not the only company that could.
Japan is our ally.
Not much longer if we continue as we do.
We still have allies?
More importantly, we militarily occupy Japan.
We won’t have any allies left at the end of next year besides maybe Russia and Israel.
Amd64 has other vendors.
I hate everything that Cook is doing to kiss up to Trump and he did something similar during the first administration by letting Trump brag about final assembly of low selling Mac Pros was happening in the US.
But this is the country that the US wants (said as a born and bred US citizen) these are the results of it. Every CEO is kissing Trumps ass because that’s the only way you get ahead in the US now.
The media, the other two branches, colleges, tech companies etc have all bent a knee and bribed the President in one way or the other.
I think Tim is only kissing ass because the desk trinket is cheap and the investment will take time to materialise, probably after this presidency. And Apple will be around longer than trump will be alive.
I’m sure it’s killing him as much as us.
> I’m sure it’s killing him as much as us.
I'm not. If someone were playing the pure numbers, I'll bet they'd have some exactly this. It's how you maximize profit under Trump.
That’s his job. He’s doing it.
The fact he allowed Tim Apple to just hang out there was telling
Tim's just getting ahead of project 2025's "What we do in the shadows" purge. I mean, the Bible says he...
Sad but not implausible
[flagged]
Hint: my user name will give you a clue about my age.
It doesn't need to get officially nationalized. Trump is already using tariffs to essentially direct large businesses. It's already been reported that Trump is requiring TSMC to take a 49% stake in Intel for tariff relief.
Why would TSMC do this? Companies want the best chips and they can only get them from TSMC. If there isn't an alternative and building the necessary infrastructure in the US takes too long the Tarif is useless.