On 29/10/02 at 15:38 Dave P wrote: >On Tue, 29 Oct 2002, Roy Wood wrote: > >> Insider talk has it that Motorola will soon pull out of chip manufacture >> altogether. > >That is indeed insider talk. Apple is repositioning to use IBM >manufactured parts. The cell chip part of the business is moving to using >foundries... > >Dave
Ah, THAT - yes, it's a sort of general trend anyway. Some of the 'independent' Taiwan foundries now have technology at least as good as the top US owned stuff, and for manufacturers that do not rely on cutting edge stuff for most of their production, it makes no sense to build their own foundry - just too expensive and will not pay itself off before it's obsolete, let alone generate a profit. The volume is just too low. I suppose I just misread chip making as chip designing. BTW IBM microelectronics is really largely a foundry for others these days, although they do design, very little of it is comissioned by IBM proper. Nasta
