🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Apple’s backup search draws on more than a decade of foundry history

• Apple looked at Intel around 2011, then stayed with TSMC after Tim Cook told TSMC founder Morris Chang that “Intel just does not know how to be a foundry,” a contract manufacturer that makes chips for other companies 1.
• Apple saw Intel as less focused on outside chip designers, with added tension because Intel also sells its own chips 1.
• The need for another option grew after months-long shortages hit high-performance Mac desktops. Cook tied the delays to limited access to TSMC’s most advanced manufacturing for Apple’s system-on-chip (SoC) designs 2.

Diversification may begin at the edges

• A switch for iPhone processors looks unlikely because Apple is deeply tied to TSMC. Samsung’s 3-nanometer yields run at 30% to 40%, compared with more than 80% at TSMC 3.
• A more practical path would start with lower-risk parts 3.
• Intel’s 18A-P process, due in late 2026, could fit that role. An early use case could be lower-risk chips like entry-level M-series Mac processors rather than iPhone A-series processors 3.
• Apple also signed a deal with Samsung Foundry, Samsung Electronics’ contract chipmaking division, to make complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensors (CIS) in Austin, Texas. These chips sit in camera modules and capture images. The move would end Sony’s decade-long exclusive supply of iPhone image sensors 3.