With the new Mac Pro, Apple has proven its serious about bringing at least some manufacturing back to the States. The next step, though, is chips, and a new report says that Apple is bringing chip fabrication of its A-series chips stateside at a new $6 billion facility in upstate New York. And Samsung is said to be involved.
According to the Albany Times Union, Apple is looking to build a fab in upstate New York in a deal between Cupertino and California-based GlobalFoundries. The location is said to be Malta, New York.
The idea here is to wean themselves off of dependency on Samsung when it comes to building their A-series processors. Ironically, though, Samsung is believed to be involved in the Apple-GlobalFoundries deal, helping the two ramp up production. This makes sense, as Samsung not only has a long history building A-series chips, but knows quite a bit about ARM chip fabrication as a whole.
This isn’t the first time Malta has been floated as a potential site for Apple chip fabricatiom, though previous rumors suggested Apple would be partnering with Taiwan-based TSMC to build chips at the site. Other rumors suggested that Apple would invest $10 billion in a top secret chip fab in Oregon, which was codenamed Project Azalea.
Source: Albany Times Union
