mas (a.delete@this.b.com) on September 30, 2013 9:05 pm wrote:
> A couple of quarters ago Intel was operating at 50% capacity so it could have accommodated Apple
> production easily enough. It started converting previously planned 22nm capacity to 14nm to adjust.
> Apple and Intel have never been able to agree on pricing which kept Intel out of the first iPhone,
> maybe one day they will if Apple feels the need. Intel is not bothered either way.


Apple and Intel would need years of lead time to do this. They'd need to do a design almost from scratch to get any real benefit from Intel's process, so they couldn't hop over just because Intel's CEO called them six months ago "hey, we have unused capacity so we can fit you in now, want to finally dump those guys at Samsung?"

They probably also have contracts with Samsung, since I doubt Samsung wants to take the risk of Apple calling them up one day "hey, we aren't going to need you for the A8, we made other plans" and suddenly Samsung has massive unused capacity. I don't see Apple going straight from Samsung to someone else, they'll probably dual source for a year or two because of this.

Come to think of it, if there is really any chance of an agreement with Intel, you'd think they'd have a little skunkworks project to try things out and make it happen more quickly if they did come to an agreement. For instance a small team of Apple engineers working at Intel's development fab with an Intel team, targeting Intel's 14nm process. Eventually they run a few wafers, and can get a better idea about die size, performance and power use to expect so both sides have a better idea what they're negotiating for. Knowing Apple's secrecy, they'd use something older, so A7 if they were doing this now. Who knows, maybe they are already this and ran some A6 wafers earlier this year? For that reason, if this happens you'd probably see Apple switch to Intel for older iPhone SoCs before they started using them for the top model.