- Apple has relied on TSMC for manufacturing its SoCs, giving them priority access to leading-edge nodes.
- TSMC manufactures virtually all of Apple’s leading-edge custom chips, powering 220-250 million iPhones annually, along with Mac, iPad, Apple Watch, Vision Pro and other Apple devices.
- Apple is looking to diversify its foundry partner to reduce single-vendor risk, gain capacity for advanced nodes and minimize geopolitical risks.
- Intel can be a favored partner for Apple, as it will help in increasing domestic manufacturing.
- However, Apple will not be able to move significant volume production to Intel due to capacity constraints and initially will likely work with packaging or small-volume SoCs.
Apple has maintained one of the industry’s strongest strategic partnerships with TSMC, relying on the foundry to manufacture virtually all of its custom SoCs for the iPhone, Mac, iPad, Apple Watch and other consumer electronic products. This long-standing relationship is built not only on TSMC's leadership on advance node, but also on its ability to consistently deliver high manufacturing yields, predictable execution and the massive production capacity required to support Apple's global product launches.
