On January 17, there was supply chain news that Apple's latest generation of A16 Bionic bionic chips have completed the design finalization, will use TSMC N4P process projection, is expected to start production in the second half of the year in TSMC Fab 18 factory. In order to ensure the production of the iPhone 14 series, Apple has accepted TSMC's foundry price increase and taken over 4NM production capacity of 120,000 to 150,000 pieces.
Semiconductors are basically one of the busiest industries in the past two years, and their wafer foundry capacity has been in short supply for a long time. In the second half of last year, the news of the price increase of the foundry of the company was spread, but the price increase could not resist the surging orders. TSMC is almost the exclusive foundry of Apple chips, and in order to ensure the supply of chips, it is inevitable to add money.
According to previous news, the average oem price of TSMC in 2022 will rise by 8% to 10% compared with last year, but some sources said that Apple is TSMC's largest customer, and the increase should be lower than other manufacturers. Xiao Lei believes that Apple may not bear the cost of chip foundry price increases, but transfer it to consumers, which means that the iPhone 14 series equipped with A16 is more expensive.
Of course, Apple's chip to find TSMC OEM is not as simple as A16. Xiao Lei also learned that Apple is still preparing a new Mac platform chip M2, and plans to change all Mac products to self-developed processors in 2022, which is conducive to accelerating the upgrading of product lines and strengthening the ecological closed loop.
Xiao Lei remembers Intel CEO Kissinger who said at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit that he wanted to save Apple as a customer. Now, if Apple rolls out its self-developed Mac processors in full swing, Intel's chances may be few and far between.
It is worth mentioning that Apple still intends to distinguish multiple versions on the A16, such as emasculating GPU cores or emasculating CPU frequencies. Combined with the previous news that the iPhone 14 followed the A15 chip, Apple is likely to try to widen the gap between different versions, and consumers who want to pursue a newer and stronger iPhone can only consider the iPhone 14 Pro/Pro Max.
In the environment of tight wafer production capacity and shortage of chip supply, the price of chips such as computers, smart phones, and car machines is constantly rising, and the shortage and price increase of new cars are particularly obvious. In order to ensure the supply of products, Apple's compromise with TSMC is also understandable, it depends on whether the price changes of the iPhone 14 series can be accepted by consumers, hoping that the tide of lack of core will recede as soon as possible, and consumers will spend less "unjust money".