Re:Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results
by 1123581321 on Thursday October 28, 2021 @11:00PM
(#29034709)
You’re close to describing the current arrangement, a mutually profitable agreement to develop and use new capacity. There wouldn’t be much to gain from TSMC not owning the fab because TSMC is better at selling the older process capacity to other chipmakers, which lets TMSC offer favorable terms to Apple. For Apple to own fab would essentially mean for Apple to build a slightly smaller clone of the entire TSMC organization.
It sometimes certainly works strategically to deprive other companies of chips by buying up TSMC's supply, however that can also obviously work against Apple in a big way. If you really believe in your products and the demand for them, you'd want the dedicated supply from fabs you co-own.