I don't think Apple has their own fab, but at this point since they have both the chip volume and cash on hand to make it happen, I don't see why they don't build their on chip fabs. I know easier said than done, but they have the resources to move mountains if they wish.
If anything, Apple would get an assembly plant for the finished components instead of outsourcing it to Foxconn and the likes. But again, what happens when your product is in full decline like its iPhone currently is.
I just dont see any positive business position for Apple to do anything relating to fabs.
As IDC also writes, its a sure path of losing money.
I'm pretty sure I recently saw some US market share statistics which showed that the iPhone is growing faster in the states than even Android…
Is that why we see this?
http://vr-zone.com/articles/verizon-might-have-to-pay-apple-14b-as-iphone-sales-slow-down/44989.html
In Europe its already over:
Apple has cash because they have, to date, been smart enough to avoid getting into capital intensive production and manufacturing.
Being vertically integrated (an IDM, i.e. owning your fabs) is not a path to riches unless you also happen to be able to operate as a virtual monopoly on the products you are selling.
Samsung is vertically integrated and always looking for expansion opportunities, especially in sectors that require MASSIVE capital investment.
Apparently Samsung is going to be producing 14nm A9 chips for Apple from 2015 according to a new report from The Korea Economic Daily..
http://english.hankyung.com/news/apps/news.view?c1=&newscate=1&nkey=201307150718011
? I thought apple and samsung hated each other and apple dumped samsung and jumped to TSMC? Guess money heals all.
Samsung can get to 14nm at a scale that Apple needs faster than TSMC, that's most likely the main reason (plus offer a better deal).
Their new paywall mechanism is also to throw off some sites that usually take the information from them. Using hoax tags behind those articles usually is the way they roll nowadays.
Knowing this, I woudnt a penny's worth of an UMC stock. Probably a hoax just to throw non-paying readers and parasitic tech sites off.
Charlie doesn't add any value to the thing being sold here (the "thing" being information that has value because it communicates what someone else has accomplished or is intending to accomplish), he is the parasite in the equation, but yes he uses a paywall to fend off other parasites because there is no honor among thieves.
Charlie having a paywall is no different than if the pirate bay put up a paywall to keep other pirates from copying their pirated goods.
Apple has cash because they have, to date, been smart enough to avoid getting into capital intensive production and manufacturing.
Being vertically integrated (an IDM, i.e. owning your fabs) is not a path to riches unless you also happen to be able to operate as a virtual monopoly on the products you are selling.
To be fair here, Charlie's site itself is a parasitic tech site too.
True it doesn't leach off of other tech sites, it isn't a cannibalistic parasite, but the very source of the info that goes into the articles is that of confidential (to the business in question) info that has intrinsic value (otherwise insider trading would not be a legal issue) for which the business itself does not want made public (otherwise they'd release an official PR about it).
So what the paywall really is about is that Charlie wants to make money off of other people's hard work (the hard work done by Apple's negotiators in this instance) but he doesn't want anyone else making money off of those people's hard work.
Charlie doesn't add any value to the thing being sold here (the "thing" being information that has value because it communicates what someone else has accomplished or is intending to accomplish), he is the parasite in the equation, but yes he uses a paywall to fend off other parasites because there is no honor among thieves.
Charlie having a paywall is no different than if the pirate bay put up a paywall to keep other pirates from copying their pirated goods.
Nah man, Charlie is like the Edward Snowden of tech. :awe:
Seriously though, he provides information to outsiders (like myself) who would never normally have any source for that. Given the semi-accurate nature of his leaks, I wouldn't gamble my livelihood on it, but I liked it for curiousity and entertainment value- and for using in internet forum debates/arguments. Just not enough to pay $100 for it. (Plus even if I did I still wouldn't be able to use it in arguments, as the people I am arguing with wouldn't be able to see behind the paywall anyway...)
I'm not saying that Apple has a monopoly in anything, but the sheer amount of volume they churn out each year in iPods, iPads, and iPhones is enough of an excuse for them to go into the fab business. The rumors have persisted they'll eventually move their macbooks to ARM processors once performance is good enough (which makes sense as it would give their entire product line backwards compatibility from a hardware standpoint), which would further increase the volume.
Makes me wonder...Does apple sell more iPads, iPods, Macs, and iPhones combined than Intel sells CPU's nowadays?
The economics of owning your own fab requires you to have a business that entails the production and continued sales of legacy products.
If Apple were to buy a fab that was equipped with all the required tools for 22nm production, that fab needs to still be producing 22nm chips 6-8 yrs later in order for the financials to make sense.
This is why a foundry owns the fab but the fabless customer does not. Apple is not about selling legacy products, they are about getting people to upgrade and feeling like their perfectly working 2nd generation iPad needs to be replaced with a spanking new 3rd generation iPad and so on.
A typical fab will add on new nodes to its production load as time goes on, but it rarely phases out the production of legacy nodes. For a foundry this is not an issue because there are always a supply of small fabless companies out there who trail the leading edge by 4 or 5 nodes for cost and complexity reasons.
But what would apple do with a 22nm production line in 6 yrs when they want to be have all their latest gizmos and gadgets using 7nm? If the conclusion is going to be "just shut down all 22nm production and requalify all the tools for 7nm production" then they may as well remain a fabless company that throws gobs of money at a foundry to ensure the foundry has the ramp-to-capacity that Apple needs.
(the economics there are in Apple's favor, they are not fab experts, they are gadget and software experts, the foundries are the fab experts)
To own a fab pretty much requires you to have a desire to have a product portfolio that entails producing legacy and lagging-edge products for years and years. This works for IDMs because they force themselves to adopt a business model that enables it - Intel and AMD getting into the chipset business for example, or foundries being able to support lagging-edge fabless companies, or businesses that do catalogue sales such as automotive or medical parts that need be produced for 10yrs or more.
Apple does not fit that mold currently.
Now maybe they have grand plans for a shift in their business strategy itself, and with that might come the opportunity to sell large volumes of legacy products for years and years down the road such that owning a fab begins to make economic sense?
Well, TBH you went into great lengths in this post just to paint him in a bad light.
I didn't realize all that. Does Intel still produce a large volume of chips on out-dated (6+ years old) processes or are they more of an anomaly? Between their SSD drives and CPU's, which they regularly EOL for newer models, it always seems like Intel is constantly pushing their biggest chip volumes to technologically current and advanced nodes. But then again I don't really know what the breakdown of Intel's different businesses are in terms of volume.
he wants to make a buck or two off his paywall and his moles who have no problem betraying their employers by telling confidential information to Charlie.
There is no honor among thieves, and it isn't "painting in a bad light" to call out a thief when they flaunt fenced goods right in front of your face.