[boomfunky]

Apple signed a deal with TSMC to purchase nearly all of their available 3nm chips for the next year. Ethical or not, they positioned themselves to ensure almost no competitors could develop on 3nm until they did first since no fab on earth has the scale of TSMC. They could ride this plan for years if it pays them.

[paulmd]

not only is outbidding the competition not unethical (as a sibling notes), apple actually is very involved in the early node work etc. a lot of this work is literally done for apple, it is "exclusive games" in the "this game would not have been made without the sponsorship" sense. this literally would not have been brought to market on the same timelines if Tim Apple wasn't signing a couple billion dollars a year to TSMC right upfront.

Apple pays lavishly to support TSMC's early node research, and they get their say in what happens in the R&D process, and very early insight into the node and their say on how it would work for them as they do their rollout. TSMC gets carried through the research phases much faster than their competitors can do, and it's led them to be on an absolute tear starting with 7nm. And they absolutely cannot fill the same level of demand with the same level of R&D funding from any of their competitors.

It's been a healthy, productive long-term partnership, TSMC is maybe the only supplier Apple can't boss around and Apple is certainly a client that is always too big to fire. Doesn't mean every apple product is good (and TSMC can still flub, and their competitors are catching up a little bit) but Apple can move whatever they need to lol, they are masters of supply chain managment. They can cover TSMC's mistakes if needed, and they have insight into exactly what is happening as the node is developed and how they need to maneuver their product stack around to exploit it.

Engineers study designs, CEOs study logistics. Also true of NVIDIA btw lol, they are very logistics-oriented because they make up such a large marketshare. How many companies on the planet are ordering big bulk runs of GDDR? Well, if we are ordering 20% of the planet's GDDR on a fixed timetable then maybe we can get a custom version, micron, right? (9 months later, GDDR5X/6X is born lol)

It is an interesting contrast to Intel - this is almost the same kind of synergistic relationship as intel's own fab and IP side have historically had together. Did intel fail because they had a tight fab-design coupling, or did they fail because they had a rotted internal culture and then the fab slipped a bunch?

[giantrobot]

How is Apple buying all the production slots for a process in any way unethical? It's not like they're buying them and then burying the chips in a landfill. They paid TSMC's asking price for production slots. AMD or Intel could have bought those same slots but didn't. TSMC has limited capacity at 3nm, it was up for sale, Apple bought it. Where's the ethics question?

[lostlogin]

I’ve seen argument for ‘business ethics’ before from the losing side. It’s sometimes part of a media campaign. It’s likely cheaper than legal action.

[ksec]

>How is Apple buying all the production slots for a process in any way unethical?

This has been the case on HN for more than 5 years. Intel Fabs used to sell their industry best node to only Intel themselves, and charges a premium for those newer CPU. I guess that is unethical too.

[warkdarrior]

How is Google buying search defaults on all iPhones in any way unethical? It's not like they're buying them and then burying the searches in a landfill. They paid Apple's asking price for search defaults. Microsoft or Brave could have bought those same search defaults but didn't. Apple has a limited amount of search defaults on iPhones, it was up for sale, Google bought it. Where's the ethics question?