For decades, Intel was the undisputed leader in the semiconductor world, a symbol of American technological prowess. The microprocessors they invented, along with the famous x86 architecture, were the lifeblood of everything from PCs to data centers.
that look good, feel good, and are perfect for the task. Apple has always been cautious about its 'look, feel, and work quality'. However, very few people are aware that Apple itself designs the tiny chips that power the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. In fact, Apple was one of the main winners in the semiconductor world in the 'fabless revolution' that took place around the world under the leadership of TSMC.
There was once a saying in Silicon Valley: "Real Men Have Fabs" - that is, real semiconductor companies are those that have their own fabrication ('fab') plants or factories. But in the late 1980s, this idea changed completely with the help of a new generation. These entrepreneurs used to design chips themselves, but outsource the manufacturing work, whose main partners were companies like TSMC. This newly born business model is called the 'fabless model'.
On the stage of the Macworld Conference in San Francisco, history was about to be made in January, 2006. One after another, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Intel CEO Paul Otellini stepped onto the stage. That day, Jobs made a historic announcement: from now on, all Mac computers would run on Intel processors.
One day in 1992, Intel researcher John Carruthers approached the company’s CEO, Andy Grove, with a strange request. He asked for $200 million in funding to research a technology that no one was sure would even work. The technology was called Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Lithography—an ultra-precise process of etching electronic circuits onto silicon.
In 1987, two very different dreams were born in Asia. In Taiwan, Morris Chang set his sights on building a company called TSMC that would manufacture the world’s best chips. At the same time, in Shenzhen, China, Ren Zhengfei founded Huawei—a small business that purchased cheap telecom equipment from Hong Kong and sold it in the Chinese market.