A listing of TSMC clients shows that Apple generates just over a quarter of the chipmaker’s revenue, at 25.9% – with no other companies reaching double digits …
Bloomberg and Digitimes data shows that TSMC’s second-largest client is MediaTek, at 5.8%. All other clients are below 5%.
However, things could change, with Intel placing far larger orders with TSMC as it transitions from being a chipmaker to more of a chip designer. The Taiwanese chipmaker’s technical lead is so great that it would be hard for Intel to compete with TSMC’s fabrication capabilities – despite the American company’s bluster.
It can be expected that the cooperation between Intel and TSMC will last for at least the 2nm generation after 2025. It is a matter of profitability and the goal of market share recovery. For TSMC, after 2023, Intel has the opportunity to become the top three customers and become one of the main sources of profitable growth every year […]
For Intel, if it uses TSMC’s foundry for fabrication, although it loses face, it can get a real advantage. It takes shortcuts to quickly eliminate the crisis of process delays and capacity shortages, and significantly reduces manufacturing costs. Faced with competition from AMD, NVIDIA and other rivals, its competitiveness will be greatly improved though using TSMC for manufacturing.
Intel hopes to grab the global chip demand that has exploded in recent years. In addition to its process technology advantages, Intel also has packaging technology. It has announced a number of customer releases, including AWS as the first customer to adopt IFS packaging solutions.
Intel initially responded to the vast scale of Apple’s lead by claiming that it can win back Mac business.
“Apple decided they could do a better chip themselves than we could,” Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said during an interview for Axios on HBO. “And, you know, they did a pretty good job.”
“So what I have to do is create a better chip than they can do themselves. I would hope to win back this piece of their business, as well as many other pieces of business, over time.”
Gelsinger later said that Intel could (sort of) beat Moore’s law to overtake Apple.
“Today we are predicting that we will maintain or even go faster than Moore’s law for the next decade. … We as the stewards of Moore’s Law will be relentless in our path to innovate” […]
However, it appears that Gelsinger is playing a little fast and loose with the definition of beating Moore’s Law, referencing “a processor that could consist of several slices of silicon built into a single package.” So, er, stacking chips rather than doubling the number of transistors on them, then.
Photo: Laura Ockel/Unsplash
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