TSMC “Apple-first” 3nm policy leads to AMD and Qualcomm mutiny
Apple has a long history of buying their suppliers a production line in return for guaranteed production levels, going back to the start of the Tim Cook era.<p>An early example.<p><a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2005/11/21Apple-Announces-Long-Term-Supply-Agreements-for-Flash-Memory/" rel="nofollow">https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2005/11/21Apple-Announces-Lon...</a><p>A more recent example.<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-corning/apple-awards-iphone-supplier-corning-250-million-from-u-s-manufacturing-fund-idUSKBN1W217H" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-corning/apple-award...</a><p>If you go back to the time when Apple was looking at single sourcing all their SOC production at TSMC, you'll see TSMC's CEO publicly saying it would make sense to dedicate a Fab to a single customer.<p>>The world's leading foundry chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. is considering operating single-customer wafer fabs, according to chairman and CEO Morris Chang.<p>"I think that they are going to be larger customers, and now it makes complete sense to dedicate a whole fab to just one customer and hold that – to hold fabs in fact to just one customer."<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120728040723/https://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4391104/TSMC-says-single-customer-fabs-make-sense" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20120728040723/https://www.eetim...</a><p>I think the reason that Apple is always first in line at TSMC is that they bought TSMC a Fab.