Intel reportedly courting ex-flame Apple to become its next investor After a painful breakup and a bout of financial turmoil, Intel is looking to rekindle the relationship with its old flame Apple. The x86 giant reportedly hopes to convince Cupertino to become an investor, unnamed sources told Bloomberg. The talks come amid a flurry of new investment in Intel, which kicked off in August when …
I think the rationale here is fairly simple. The chip ecosystem is better with more diversity, if you want to buy chips. Also, the success Apple has had with hardware/software integration might benefit Intel, should Apple be a major shareholder. Since large shareholders sit on boards, Apple could assist Intel's strategic foresight and capital investments for future production. All in all, a win-win.
"The chip ecosystem is better with more diversity"
I think the remarkable dominance of TSMC (and upstream, ASML) suggests otherwise thus far. There WAS diversity, but people like Intel sat on their well paid behinds and let the world pass them by, so that nowadays it's a no brainer if you want cutting edge foundry work then you go to TSMC. Intel is clearly not an investment case, otherwise they wouldn't have to be begging for state subsidies and supply chain "partners" to chip in.
The risk for Apple of throwing a few billion on the Intel bonfire is that TSMC maintain their lead in technology and process efficiency, so Apple continue to use TSMC, and all Apple's charitable donation to Intel achieve is support competitors who do choose Intel. However, given the Orange Clown's erratic behaviour maybe they do need to throw a bone to Intel, in case Trump throws Taiwan under the Pooh bus. I think that's distinctly possible, but I doubt that having phone SoCs made in the US would help - the disruption to electronics supply chains would encompass lots of components that nobody has given any thought to.
Intel blew the design card when it dumped its ARM licence. The only thing Intel could offer would be additional FAB capacity, though its arguable as to whether this would work for the volumes that Apple requires and still remain in the market for others. In other words: Apple might look at buying manufacturing capacity, but that's about all, and it should be noted that this doesn't fit its otherwise famously asset-light strategy.
Obviously Intel would like Apple to buy (Intel designed) chips again from them, but that boat's long sailed.
So if Intel can be an alternative fab for TSMC that seems like a decent backup / competition. Especially for peripheral chips. For example, Apple's wireless chips are the stuff they bought from Intel (and improved) so Intel could probably still make those again?
Of course Apple would have to go in with serious due process, but this isn't total crazy talk.
Since Apple is designing its own cellular modems now, as well as wifi and bluetooth radios, those would be a perfect candidate for Intel to make. They don't need a leading edge process but there would be some power use benefit to using one, and paying a little extra to have those chips made on a more advanced process than is necessary is worth it if it helps keep a competitor to TSMC around. It is not in Apple's interest for TSMC to become a monopoly. Plus it throws a bone to the orange pedo, and helps preserve Apple's tariff exemption.
Apple wouldn't be updating those chips as often as their A-series and M-series SoCs, so yield is less of a concern as they can stockpile what they need in advance (and make sure Intel's contract guarantees them a certain yield so they aren't the ones taking the risk if Intel has problems delivering)
I don't think Intel could handle the transceiver (RF) companion chips, just the baseband. They used to do RF but Apple is already reportedly talking to GlobalFoundries about having them make those RF chips in New York as they're one of the best in that particular niche. But with Apple dropping Qualcomm and Broadcom entirely starting with next year's iPhone this will add up to significant volume, but not so significant that Intel would be unable to handle it.
berkeley.edu: “Semiconductor manufacturers that apply for more than $150 million of CHIPS direct funding must provide access to high-quality child care for facility and construction workers. This stipulation is a clear recognition that child care is an essential workforce and economic support.”
“The Department of Commerce has emphasized its interest in funding projects that will”:
* “Creating inclusive opportunities for businesses, including small businesses and minority-owned, women-owned, and veteran-owned businesses”;
* “Community investments, including affordable housing, education, and transportation opportunities; and ..”
Apple in the late 1990s when it was going broke, had a big investment from Microsoft. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were able to work things out at that time after Steve returned to Apple. It gave a sense tot eh public that Microsoft was backing Apple. It also gave Apple and Mac users new versions of Microsoft Office. Apple turned itself around. Some investment from Apple in Intel might be a good thing for both. I can't see any major collaborations at this point but there are possibilities.
"I can't see any major collaborations at this point but there are possibilities."
The ability for MacOS to run on Intel is going away. I can't recall if Tahoe is ARM only, but if it isn't, it's the last. That puts every Intel based Mac on their last legs even with OCLP. I'm not running any Apple Silicon since the machines it comes in are horribly un-upgradable and difficult to service. To not be able to swap out a drive is bad. Plenty of times I've had a machine go poof and have been able to removed the drive and stick it in something else or even an external case and migrate the data to a new machine. Older machines with a bad drive are now landfill. An older Mac with the base level of RAM when purchased are un-upgradeable now so those are landfill much sooner since every year applications want more to run. To cap it off, Apple charges outrageous prices for added RAM and more storage. They charge premium prices anyway so it's puzzling why they don't just spend a few cents and cram in a load of RAM and a bigger amount of storage to begin with. It's like airlines charging for every damn little thing rather than just figuring everybody will get a cold drink and need to take a piece of luggage with them and build that in.
Apple has stated that Tahoe will be the last version of MacOS that will run on Intel-based, the next version, whatever it is called, will be Apple Silicon / ARM only.
OCLP is basically dead in the water now. If the next release of MacOS simply doesn’t include the code to run on Intel chips then no amount of ‘fiddling with the installers and/or pretending that this machine is another machine - which is basically what OSLP does, will help in any way. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that ‘every Intel-based Mac is on its last legs’. Yes they won’t get the latest and greatest, but Apple are fairly good at supporting older OS realises for a time!
"To not be able to swap out a drive is bad. Plenty of times I've had a machine go poof and have been able to removed the drive and stick it in something else or even an external case and migrate the data to a new machine.”
Ok yes I see what you are saying. but consider this. You see the ‘drive’, ie the storage, as a separate component to the CPU etc. But what if it was massively more efficient to have the storage (drive) as part of the same chip as the CPU. Then it is obvious that you can’t ‘remove’ that part and connect it to a different machine. That’s the trade off between performance and replaceability.
Go back decades, computers then consisted on individual transistors or valves on boards which could easily be replaced. Do you think that it should be possible to replace an individual (failing) transistor on a CPU chip? Of course not, you replace the entire chip and all the other many, many tens if not hundreds of thousands of perfectly working transistors on it. Now take that idea and scale it up, where do you draw the line?
Imagine a technology where an entire phone/laptop can be ‘grown’ just as a crystal can be. There are no ‘components’ as such, it’s simply one solid entity, I suspect that such a divice will be more efficient, but it will be no more ‘repairable’ than a CPU chip is now!
"Older machines with a bad drive are now landfill. An older Mac with the base level of RAM when purchased are un-upgradeable now so those are landfill much sooner since every year applications want more to run”
Unusable, unfixable, un-upgradable, yes - going to landfill, not necessarily! I had a good clearcut at home last week, and I discovered four old iPod (with the 30 pin connector), two iPad minis (one had a display issue with an odd bright line down the screen and the other which had suffered and exciting battery-event whereby it had swelled up to the point of detaching half of the screen from the chassis. And plus a 4th Gen iPad with a massive crack in then screen - still worked though. So I took them all to my local Apple store, which somewhat surprised them as they worn't used to someone pitching up with seven devices, all of which have to go through the same proiceedure.
Now Apple claim that said devices are properly recycled for the raw materials - now maybe they are lying and they simply dump them in the nearest river with a bag of Plutonium to weigh them down, but, in the absence of any other evidence, I’, included to believe that they do recycle some if not all of the material.
"To cap it off, Apple charges outrageous prices for added RAM and more storage.”
And this one, I will not argue with you at all, yes they do!
