Bloomberg News reportedIn order to reduce its over-reliance on TSMC as its sole supplier, Apple is currently in preliminary discussions with Intel.Wafer foundry cooperation negotiationMeanwhile, its senior executives also traveled to Texas, USA, to inspect Samsung's advanced chip manufacturing plant under construction.
Production bottlenecks emerge, Apple faces internal restructuring to address the challenge.
For more than a decade, the core processor design of Apple devices has relied heavily on TSMC's most advanced manufacturing process technology. Even as one of the world's largest chip buyers, Apple has not been able to completely avoid the dramatic fluctuations in the supply chain.
During a recent quarterly earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledged that insufficient supply of advanced process nodes, coupled with memory costs, has led to supply constraints for iPhones and Macs. This shortage is primarily due to the significant demand from recent AI data center construction and higher-than-expected market demand for Macs capable of running AI models locally. While discussions about finding alternative suppliers began before the AI boom, the urgency of this issue has increased significantly in recent months.
At the same time, Apple also reorganized its hardware team, merging the hardware engineering and hardware technology teams under the unified leadership of current Chief Hardware Officer Johny Srouji. Following this reorganization, Apple Silicon, one of the five key areas within the hardware team, was placed under the leadership of Sri Santhanam, a veteran executive with 18 years of experience at Apple.
Potential opportunities for Intel and Samsung, and the insurmountable "scale barrier".
To ensure a price negotiation advantage and diversify risks, Apple's consistent strategy is to find more than one supplier for key components. Successfully securing Apple's advanced process technology orders would be a huge boost for Intel and Samsung.
• Intel:For Intel, which has been actively promoting its wafer foundry business under the leadership of CEO Li-Wu Chen, this is a significant market affirmation, and it also allows them to revisit their long-standing partnership since 2006.Partnerships before Apple fully transitioned to its own Apple SiliconIn addition, renowned analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also revealed in an article published on the X platform last year that Apple plans to use Intel's 18A-P process to produce entry-level M-series chips, with shipments expected to begin as early as 2027.
• Samsung:For Samsung, this will help significantly enhance its position in the advanced process market and further narrow the gap with TSMC in foundry services.
However, the report also points out that Apple's biggest challenges currently lie in "manufacturing scale" and "consistency." Neither Intel nor Samsung can reliably provide the same massive production capacity as TSMC, which is the core reason why TSMC has become the world's leading chip foundry and continues to be Apple's most critical supply chain partner. This also makes Apple hesitant to use non-TSMC technology; negotiations are still in the early stages, no orders have been signed, and Apple may ultimately choose not to cooperate with other companies.
