[HN Gopher] Apple and Intel Rumored to Partner on Mac Chips
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Apple and Intel Rumored to Partner on Mac Chips
Author : bigyabai
Score : 111 points
Date : 2025-11-28 17:00 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macrumors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macrumors.com)
| mushufasa wrote:
| This is the type of rumor that could swing a stock price... I'm
| skeptical of how this got out there and by whom.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| Is this 2006 again?
| SG- wrote:
| no? It's still Apple's CPU, they're just looking at getting
| another fab supplier.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| It was a joke. I can't believe I have to explain that.
| timw4mail wrote:
| To fab the CPUs...seems more plausible than anything else with
| Intel.
| bigyabai wrote:
| AFAIK Intel Foundry Services are the _only_ product they can 't
| find big customers for. Apple would be the first if they move
| past the sampling phase.
| turtletontine wrote:
| They've already secured Microsoft as a customer, they'll be
| making the next Maia AI accelerator for Azure on 18A. Apple
| would be a much bigger catch for sure, but they have in fact
| secured one big customer.
| alecco wrote:
| An insignificant token to appease growing discontent by American
| people. Apple was investing in China around "$55 billion per year
| by 2015".
| baq wrote:
| they did it with the modem previously, the second supplier was
| strictly worse, but they need to have a negotiating position with
| their single point of failure supplier
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > but they need to have a negotiating position with their
| single point of failure supplier
|
| They don't. Apple has an Architecture License for ARM, they can
| do whatever the fuck they want.
|
| If you're referring to TSMC - it shouldn't be too much of a
| problem for Apple to go and contract Samsung instead, at least
| assuming Samsung can keep up the yield. Intel isn't a
| competitor to either TSMC or Samsung, their fab process is
| years behind.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Strictly speaking, Samsung currently has no analogous product
| to 18A or TSMC 2nm.
| deaddodo wrote:
| Intel's 18A is closer to availability (functional, ramping to
| production) than Samsung's SF2 (still in dev/testing phase);
| which is roughly analogous to TSMC N2.
|
| TSMC is ahead, as usual, but Intel is closer than Samsung (in
| this specific case).
| roody15 wrote:
| " Such metrics are often closely guarded trade secrets. But
| according to the Dailian report, Samsung's yields for SF2
| are in the 50% to 60% range, just high enough for
| commercial production. The same report puts TSMC's upcoming
| N2 node at 80%"
|
| Looks like Samsung is actually closer to production than
| Intel 18A which is still having issues with yields.
|
| https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/graphics-cards/samsungs-
| nex...
| nicoburns wrote:
| > Intel isn't a competitor to either TSMC or Samsung, their
| fab process is years behind.
|
| It's certainly in Apple (and every company that requires a
| leading-edge fab)'s interest to try and keep Intel
| competitive with TSMC and Samsung. 3 companies is already too
| few for a truly competitive market. And 2 is worse.
|
| I'd argue it's also in _everyone_ 's interest to have some
| redundancy in the chip fabrication supply chain (esp. given
| the geopolitical situation in Taiwan). It would already be
| catastrophic if TSMC's production was disrupted for any
| reason. It would be even more catastrophic if there was no
| Intel.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Fully agree with you on all points, but I fear this
| requires serious governmental interventions - simply due to
| the massive amounts of money involved. The "free market"
| obviously has failed, with - as you mentioned - massive
| dangers to national security.
|
| Unfortunately, I also can't see any government willing to
| put the money on the table to establish a third party from
| scratch. All that seems to be available is handouts for
| TSMC to construct a fab in Arizona, and even that was
| widely criticized.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > I fear this requires serious governmental interventions
| - simply due to the massive amounts of money involved
|
| Probably. And I suspect it will happen. Chips are
| crucial, and the governments know it.
|
| Mind you, Apple also has large sums of money available (I
| suspect more than they know what to do with). So some of
| that going towards propping up Intel may be no bad thing.
|
| > Unfortunately, I also can't see any government willing
| to put the money on the table to establish a third party
| from scratch.
|
| I believe the Chinese government is in the process of
| doing this with SMIC. It seems likely that they will be
| competitive before too long.
| alwa wrote:
| Everyone's interest except, perhaps, the Taiwanese state...
| where TSMC's know-how lives, and whose help you'd need to
| transfer it elsewhere.
|
| I keep hearing SMIC has _allllllmost_ caught up, of
| course...
| astrange wrote:
| EUV is an American technology which we decided to license
| to ASML/TSMC instead of Nikon/Canon. They do have their
| own knowledge but are not irreplaceable.
| touwer wrote:
| Nope, it's Japanese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme
| _ultraviolet_lithograph...
| dagmx wrote:
| The modem was two specifically separate designs from two
| different companies.
| hedora wrote:
| So, they're going to use a more power hungry process for the low
| end devices? The whole point of the Air and SE lines was that
| they were lightweight and compact.
|
| Watching a company at that scale completely lose its own plot is
| depressing. Did they replace Cook with an LLM that compacted its
| context one too many times?
|
| Edit: This is a bad look for intel too. How are Apple store
| employees/nerds going to explain this product line bifurcation?
| "This low end Apple gizmo is a hot mess because it has Intel
| Inside. Also, it's $50 more than last year. MAGA!"
| progval wrote:
| What makes you think they are going to be more power-hungry
| than if Apple manufactured them itself?
| hedora wrote:
| The article says it's going on Intel 18a, which has better
| performance, but worse density/power consumption than TSMC's
| comparable node:
|
| https://www.techspot.com/news/106782-intel-18a-found-
| faster-...
|
| Unless Apple is going to add active cooling or something to
| the Air, iPad and iPhone, I'd expect more thermal throttling
| on the intel chips (though the difference isn't as stark as I
| assumed -- it looks like Intel closed the gap a bit with
| 18a).
| bigyabai wrote:
| TSMC's 2nm is much, _much_ higher demand. Apple 's probably
| getting priced-out of the node by Nvidia in much the same
| way Apple bought out TSMC 5nm before.
|
| Apple's cheaper products and hardware cash cows can't
| afford to pay that sort of tax, so it makes sense to boot
| them onto 18A. Those are the binned products that would
| have been throttling anyways.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| TSMC and Apple have a long standing partnership, and I
| doubt TSMC is dumb enough to throw a massive amount of
| long term business away in exchange for short term AI
| bubble gains.
|
| TSMC has even been cutting Apple special terms they don't
| give others:
|
| > every time TSMC introduces a major upgrade, called an
| advanced process node, to its chipmaking, the defect
| rates of the dies stay relatively high until it can iron
| out the kinks. For 3 nm, the most cutting-edge node
| launching this year, the yield on wafers has recently
| been in the range of 70% to 80%, according to analysts,
| as well as one person with direct knowledge of the
| process.
|
| That number would be a tough pill to swallow for TSMC's
| customers, which typically pay for the wafer and all of
| the dies on it--including the bad ones. But in a break
| from standard practice, the Taiwanese manufacturer has
| only been charging Apple for dies that work--"known good
| dies," in industry parlance--these people said.
|
| https://archive.ph/yfGLp
| bigyabai wrote:
| I doubt TSMC has a choice. Any fab allocation Apple can
| pay for, Nvidia can afford twice over. With that kind of
| money Nvidia could swallow the cost of 40% broken dies
| and still turn out higher hardware margins than any 2nm
| iPhone ever could. Neither the iPhone Air nor Vision Pro
| justify Apple's push to dominate the latest nodes.
|
| Novelty applications like "performance smartphone
| hardware" will have to wait on the sidelines. The
| datacenter needs it more than Apple or Qualcomm, and
| they've brought the beaucoup bucks to prove it.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > Novelty applications like "performance smartphone
| hardware" will have to wait on the sidelines.
|
| A quarter of your revenue isn't a "novelty".
|
| > Apple is by far TSMC's largest customer, accounting for
| 23% of the Taiwanese chipmaker's almost $72 billion in
| revenue in 2022.
|
| https://archive.ph/yfGLp
|
| You don't throw away a long term partner over short term
| AI bubble gains if you intend to be a long term business.
| bigyabai wrote:
| You're right that money talks. I just think you're
| forgetting which side has more leverage in this game.
|
| Apple is _most certainly_ not being thrown away, merely
| asked to compete at the market price if they want the
| latest node. Anything else is wasted money from TSMC 's
| perspective, they still make legacy nodes Apple can
| perfectly well use for the iPhone if they want to save
| cash.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| At most, TSMC will let Nvidia pay up front to build an
| additional Fab dedicated fully or partially to their use.
|
| The way Apple already does:
|
| > The investment includes "a multibillion-dollar
| commitment from Apple to produce advanced silicon in
| TSMC's Fab 21 facility in Arizona," according to Apple's
| February announcement. The plan is to double Apple's
| Advanced Manufacturing Fund from $5 billion to $10
| billion, with TSMC Arizona a primary beneficiary.
|
| https://www.aztechcouncil.org/tucson-chipmaker-tsmc-
| arizona-...
|
| They aren't going to throw away a long term partner for
| short term gains.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Nvidia already did. They and Apple were the two primary
| investors in TSMC's Arizona plant.
|
| Kissing ass gets you in the door with TSMC, but it
| doesn't protect you from other people outbidding the
| product you want.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > Kissing ass gets you in the door with TSMC
|
| No, but being a long term partner gets you preferential
| treatment.
|
| TSMC has literally been cutting Apple special lower
| pricing deals while signaling that given Nvidia's
| extravagant margins, they expect them to pay more per
| wafer than a normal customer.
|
| > TSMC hints at price increase for Nvidia as response to
| its booming AI hardware business
|
| https://www.techspot.com/news/103325-tsmc-hints-
| increasing-c...
| bigyabai wrote:
| Case in point:
|
| > "TSMC's contribution to the world and the tech industry
| is under-represented by its financial results." Huang
| added that "raising prices is consistent with the value
| they deliver. I'm very happy to see them succeed."
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Lowering prices for Apple while simultaneously raising
| them for Nvidia doesn't really support your argument.
|
| If Nvidia is willing to pay up front to increase TSMC's
| production capacity, then they get wafers out of that new
| production capacity.
| bigyabai wrote:
| It perfectly supports my argument, if Apple has reduced
| access to TSMC capacity:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand
|
| And they objectively do. In 2019 Apple had TSMC 5nm all
| to themselves; now they're fighting with Nvidia for
| capacity. Nevermind the rumor that Apple is sampling
| Intel Foundry Services, the mere fact that there is TSMC
| 2nm and 3nm capacity Apple is unwilling to buy is proof
| that their agreement is limited.
| etempleton wrote:
| The performance / power difference between Intel 18a and
| TSMC 3nm / 2nm is not going to be that wide. Certainly not
| enough to require active cooling on phones / tablets. The
| rumor says they are targeting the M series processors
| anyway, so probably looking at it for their laptops first
| where there is active cooling and the power envelope is
| more forgiving.
| bigyabai wrote:
| > How are Apple store employees/nerds going to explain this
| product line bifurcation?
|
| I really doubt most Apple customers care. A few do, but they've
| long been the minority.
| hedora wrote:
| Yeah; but the ones that don't care about the details often
| ask someone "which one should I buy?"
|
| Currently, for MacBooks, the answer is "the small one doesn't
| have a fan, so for sustained work like games or iMovie it is
| slower. However, it is smaller, lighter, quieter and
| cheaper".
| bigyabai wrote:
| I really do not see how that advice would change with an
| 18A chip in the lineup.
|
| Are their egos supposed to feel the performance hit? Is
| there some cabal of Taiwanese extremists propping up the
| Mac market?
| chasil wrote:
| In the days of Intel modems, advising against buying from
| AT&T and T-Mobile was sound, as the performance was worse
| than a Qualcomm model.
| chasil wrote:
| Is the 18A process more power hungry?
|
| 'Kuo said Apple plans to utilize Intel's 18A process, which is
| the "earliest available sub-2nm advanced node manufactured in
| North America."'
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| What is the more power hungry process?
|
| M5 uses a 3nm process
|
| https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/tsmcs-3nm-update-...
|
| but Intel is proposing using their fab configured for the
| "earliest available sub-2nm advanced node manufactured in North
| America", according to the article (and from searching
| outside).
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > So, they're going to use a more power hungry process
|
| This is exactly what Google did when their Pixel SOCs were
| fabbed by Samsung.
|
| Performance and power efficiency were both substandard compared
| to TSMC but the chips were cheaper.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Again? I'm kind of surprised Intel wants anything to do with them
| after the M stuff. Things must be really bad at Intel.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Intel knows that it's _their own_ fault Apple ditched Intel for
| M CPUs. Intel couldn 't provide any meaningful improvements
| particularly for MacBooks _for years_.
| SG- wrote:
| you been in a cave for the last few years? things are bad at
| Intel for a while now and they need a fab customers. the deal
| they will likely throw at Apple to get capacity and show off
| their fab process doesn't suck is likely incredible.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| I have not been in a cave
| GeekyBear wrote:
| The word was that TSMC was previously looking to charge much more
| for their 2nm node.
|
| Apple may have just been looking to apply pricing pressure.
|
| > TSMC has finalized the pricing for its upcoming 2nm process,
| setting the wafer price at around $30,000. This marks a 10%-20%
| increase compared with the 3nm process average of
| $25,000-$27,000, lower than earlier market speculation of a 50%
| hike.
|
| https://technode.com/2025/10/09/tsmc-sets-2nm-wafer-price-at...
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Apple may just be looking to apply pricing pressure._
|
| Even if TSMC wasn't going to tighten the screws, it makes sense
| that Apple would be talking to Intel since Apple abhors single-
| source external dependencies. Plus, it gives them brownie
| points with our Grifter In Chief. https://www.intc.com/news-
| events/press-releases/detail/1748/...
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > Apple abhors single-source external dependencies.
|
| Apple previously dual sourced SOCs from both TSMC and
| Samsung, before dropping Samsung.
|
| The performance and power efficiency has to be there.
|
| If Intel can get good yields and performance/power efficiency
| from their new process node, then it can be worth the added
| complexity.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Apple may have just been looking to apply pricing pressure.
|
| It fits perfectly with Apples sucking up to Trump too.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| Please tell me this means we can have Bootcamp back?
| SG- wrote:
| why would it? they're only intereated in Intel's fab, not their
| actualy CPU technology. they're looking at diversifying they
| their fab stuff so it's not only TSMC.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| Partnerships could mean more than just fab capacity -- maybe
| even incentives to build an instruction translation layer so
| software built for Intel chips could run natively on Apple
| Silicon. Something like Rosetta, but at the hardware level.
|
| Getting a lot of down-votes for this... why are people so
| down on the idea? Was Boot Camp really that unpopular? I
| always enjoyed it -- especially for gaming. Sure, laptops
| weren't ideal, but even then the same games ran noticeably
| better on Windows than on macOS.
| astrange wrote:
| If Microsoft wanted Windows to run on Macs it would do it.
| There's ARM64 Windows already.
|
| You wouldn't enjoy it because it has an Apple GPU and most
| of the appeal in a Windows PC is the completely different
| Nvidia GPU.
| SpecialistK wrote:
| It's both technically and economically unviable for Apple.
|
| For one, Intel's x86 IP is covered by lots of patents and
| licensing agreements (including with AMD) and Apple
| wouldn't want to encumber themselves with that. Hence
| making their own GPUs and modems.
|
| For two, the M-series CPUs already have extensions which
| improve x86 emulation performance in Rosetta.
|
| For three, Rosetta is already slated for removal in a macOS
| version or two. Apple don't look backwards, they expect
| users and devs to move on with them after the transition
| period - like 32-bit code, PowerPC Rosetta, Classic
| environment.
|
| Even if Rosetta wasn't being removed, everyone should still
| want native ARM software because these are fast, efficient
| CPUs and any form of emulation will harm that. And
| dedicated SIP blocks would only confuse the market.
|
| For four, Boot Camp was a selling point when the Mac and OS
| X were still far behind Windows in terms of software
| support, so dual booting and virtualization was a selling
| point. Now many apps are cross-platform or web-based and
| Microsoft's strangehold on computing is reduced. A Mac
| running Windows was better for Apple than a Dell running
| Windows, but a Mac running macOS is what Apple wants -
| that's how they can keep in their ecosystem, charge you
| (and devs) for apps, and make you evangelical for their
| battery life.
|
| Five, Apple have never cared much about games. Yeah there
| are some classics (Marathon...) and the porting toolkit for
| Metal now, but with the Steam Deck and game streaming being
| so accessible, I see no reason why Apple would accept the
| previous 4 cons just to appeal slightly more to a gaming
| market that Apple don't target and that doesn't really
| target Apple.
|
| So people are probably downvoting (not me, I don't have
| enough karma and it wasn't a bad-faith comment!) because
| it's a far-fetched fantasy which goes directly against
| Apple's business style and would benefit almost no Mac
| users.
| bigyabai wrote:
| > Even if Rosetta wasn't being removed, everyone should
| still want native ARM software
|
| I think this is seriously flawed logic, and part of why I
| don't daily a Mac anymore. As a user, I have zero
| leverage in porting 90% of the stuff I own to the New
| Hotness. Yes, that includes video games. But it also
| includes BBEdit and Sublime and Git Tower and dozens of
| other Mac apps I paid for and can't easily use anymore.
| _That_ is insulting - I should be allowed to use these
| apps if the hardware supports it. No software nanny
| should have the right to tell me playtime is over.
|
| There's no point paying for premium software that my
| laptop OEM uses as leverage against their own developers.
| I'm not going to be complicit in it even if emulation
| "harms" the performance. It's _not_ unviable for Apple to
| implement UEFI, take Rosetta seriously or hell, even
| support Windows. They are a trillion dollar company,
| Apple could launch a satellite into fucking orbit if you
| gave them enough time. They simply don 't want to.
| naveen99 wrote:
| I don't understand why intel doesn't build a fab in Taiwan or
| another lower cost location ?
| rmah wrote:
| lack of skilled labor, probably
| naveen99 wrote:
| Taiwan surely has some poachable labor.
| vessenes wrote:
| No state infrastructure available to protect them, among many
| other considerations.
| ac29 wrote:
| Intel's most advanced production Fab is in Ireland, which is
| higher income than Taiwan but much lower than the US.
| faragon wrote:
| Why Apple don't just buy Intel? That would allow better vertical
| integration.
| walterbell wrote:
| Buyer could not fire existing customers, as Broadcom did with
| VMware.
| etempleton wrote:
| Risky. Apple loves to vertically integrate and they could
| certainly give a cash infusion, but right now they can bounce
| between TSMC, Intel and Samsung and probably get sweetheart
| deals at each because of their scale / the positive press from
| serving Apple as a customer.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Apple doesn't buy manufacturing companies, however if you can
| make something they want, they have definitely been known to
| pay for a dedicated manufacturing line up front.
| cromka wrote:
| Good luck with the EU OK-ing this
| drob518 wrote:
| This is a good play for Intel. It lets them play both sides of
| the market.
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