Comment by ls65536
20 hours ago
They bought P.A. Semi, but it was for their design capability; they never had fabs anyway, and Apple still depends on TSMC and others for manufacturing chips. Apple building fabs to ensure a guaranteed supply of memory (or logic) chips would be an unprecedented level of vertical integration, even for them.
No RAM, no profits. Apple has vertically integrated in the past for less reason than this.
Moreover it's a massive economy of scale, while their consumer electronics competitors are busy fighting a losing battle against the server market for chips, Apple can undercut them, grow their market share and get even more service revenue.
RAM prices surging in the AI hype era does not mean they'll stay there for decades (see xAI already letting one data center go), and it would take a long time for Apple to become competitive.
Should they also start CPU fabs? Batteries? Lithium mines?
SpaceX/xAI is investing in creating their own fab. If they can, Apple certainly can.
We don’t know if SpaceX’s plan will actually work, they announced it this year and it is a long-timeline Musk project. These have… mixed results.
You've got to wonder why. It makes no sense for xAI to make their own chips.
The "integration" of SpaceX/xAI is just standard Musk-move-losses-to-the-company-making-money-at-the-moment bullshit.
Apple actually have the runs on the board, xAI has Musk-BS.
yeah. right after tesla self-driving.
that's crazy. Looks like Intel is part of this https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/intel-...
Part of the trump bullshit that the USGov has taken 10% of Intel.
It's actual corruption and the standard fascist model of corporate takeover by the state.
They can’t.
Operating a FAB requires employing PhDs that are willing to work 8 hours shifts with no breaks (each removal of a bunnysuit is an expensive exercise), and there’s no reason to believe SpaceX is capable of hiring such people.
There was a point made recently by Musk that the whole clean room idea is outdated if you can just ensure the path the silicon takes from wafer to lidding is clean. Seems solvable to me, but leaves me wondering why it hasn’t been done before. I assume there is no human handling of raw/etched silicon now anyway, so why does the whole room need to be clean?
8 replies →
So what? Maybe a hand full of full bunnies per shift, and another dozen or two half-bunnies. There aren't more. This can be seen/validated by some older yt-videos, where something went wrong in the fab, for instance a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOUP ejecting a wafer in wrong ways into a machine, then being ejected by that onto the floor, and shattering. Causing all systems to stop, and all the warning lights beginning to blink in an expanding cascade. At about 4:30AM. Maybe 20 seconds later two half bunnies with face masks appear, another 10 seconds later a full bunnie. Some gesticulating ensues, full bunnie opens his suit, gets his flip phone, half bunnies downing their masks. All looking very concerned and exasperated. Having a really bad day. No more bunnies appear over several minutes. Video ends.