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0 pointsbrucehoult2y ago0 comments

But they're free to design and build their own chips without such blobs, right?

Right?

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I'm not sure I follow your point. They're a vendor using POWER chips to provide blob-free computers. I'm fairly confident that they could make their own chips, but given that they'd need a fab and call it a billion dollars that's an impractical step up from building machines around existing chips. None of this constitutes them having "torched their own roadmap", just being stuck between a rock (their product being decent performance blob-free computers) and a hard place (needing to source CPUs).

brucehoultOP2y ago

When someone says "build their own chip" they do not in general mean to extract their own silicon ingots from sand, or to build their own fab. They mean to "tape out" their own SoC design and send it to a fab owner such as TSMC, Samsung, Intel for the physical manufacturing step.

Apple does not own a fab. Arm does not own a fab. Qualcomm does not own a fab. I believe IBM does not own any modern fab (some built in early 2000s, yes).

yjftsjthsd-h2y ago

Yes? When I said "they'd need a fab and call it a billion dollars" I meant they'd need the use of a fab, not that they'd have to own the factory themselves. I don't see how it matters anyways

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yjftsjthsd-h2y ago

brucehoultOP2y ago

Apple does not own a fab. Arm does not own a fab. Qualcomm does not own a fab. I believe IBM does not own any modern fab (some built in early 2000s, yes).

yjftsjthsd-h2y ago

Yes? When I said "they'd need a fab and call it a billion dollars" I meant they'd need the use of a fab, not that they'd have to own the factory themselves. I don't see how it matters anyways

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