And the problem there is? Any one of those companies are all long term TSMC customers and I have no doubt have solid working relationships with them. They would have had similar opportunity to book that fab capacity too.
The problem is the assertion that "It's Apple's engineering and design". Engineering & design don't buy you the entire world's supply of the best in class fab capacity for some months: money does.
It seems to me apple's marketing and product strategy has more to do with bringing in that money than actual engineering and design, contradicting the original assertion.
Apple's engineering and design success is a huge part of why they have the resources to likely fund some of the 5 nm fab deployment costs and capacity. Money comes from success which came from great engineering and design coupled with great marketing.
Marketing might get you there for a short time, but maintaining that growth and long term high customer satisfaction doesn't come without great engineering and design.
Apple wouldn't have shelled out the money to have first crack at 5nm if their design team couldn't commit to having a CPU design done in time. It's a huge R&D achievement to have such a complex design ready to go on a new node as the node launches. It speaks to extremely tight timelines and extremely close collaboration between TSMC and Apple.
I'm not saying apple's engineering isn't good, just that it doesn't seem to be that exceptional. If the other companies couldn't have a design ready for 5nm then why would apple pay for the exclusivity rights?
It is exceptional according to this reasoning.
They pay because there is not enough of this 5nm fab. Business does not go against engineering, that’s all.
At the risk of sounding cheeky, Apple's engineering and design are the sole source of the money involved.
Apple's involvement with TSMC also provides TSMC with an opportunity to learn from Apple. Nobody books an entire pure-play foundry without taking the time to figure out what they want to do with that manufacturing capacity in the first place.
Yeah, I'm tempted to say something like: it takes a while in your career before you figure out the enormous difference between companies who do engineering and design and companies who do design and engineering.
