It's interesting that a critical component of many of their products is being manufactured in the US. Makes me think their long-term plan is to bring much of manufacturing back to the states, or at least a portion of it for the US market. Alternatively, this could just be a move to keep IP in the states, and not have it raided by China, absorbing the costs of shipping sapphire.
Also, this small facility might just be a testbed for R&D on the manufacturing process, not a full production facility or even an R&D facility for new materials. Apple is becoming quite good at manufacturing as they continue to build their vertical ecosystem.
GT has been around for a while and is a US based company. To date, they have been purely a capital equipment manufacturer. They make the equipment that makes the saphire. Semiconductor facilities and other companies that wanted sapphire bought their equipment, then made their own sapphire themselves. The Apple deal is standing GT a little bit on its head and now turning it into a sapphire supplier. In a sense it has become its own biggest customer and now has to buy its own equipment and then use that equipment to deliver sapphire to Apple.
Hopefully they have hired all new experienced people to run the manufacturing side of things. Manufacturing requires a whole different mentality than development (in fact almost the exact opposite mindset in quite a few cases). As I understand it GT is going to be an OEM supplier and Apple isn't doing any of the manufacturing themselves.
GT has been around for a while and is a US based company. To date, they have been purely a capital equipment manufacturer. They make the equipment that makes the saphire. Semiconductor facilities and other companies that wanted sapphire bought their equipment, then made their own sapphire themselves. The Apple deal is standing GT a little bit on its head and now turning it into a sapphire supplier. In a sense it has become its own biggest customer and now has to buy its own equipment and then use that equipment to deliver sapphire to Apple.
Hopefully they have hired all new experienced people to run the manufacturing side of things. Manufacturing requires a whole different mentality than development (in fact almost the exact opposite mindset in quite a few cases). As I understand it GT is going to be an OEM supplier and Apple isn't doing any of the manufacturing themselves.
Great info, thanks. So, in a nutshell, Apple has side-stepped middleman for their requirements.
Silicon on insulator For silicon on insulator optical devices, see silicon photonics.
SIMOX process Silicon on insulator (SOI) technology refers to the use of a layered silicon-insulator-silicon substrate in place of conventional silicon substrates in semiconductor manufacturing, especially microelectronics, to reduce parasitic device capacitance, thereby improving performance.[1] SOI-based devices differ from conventional silicon-built devices in that the silicon junction is above an electrical insulator, typically silicon dioxide or sapphire (these types of devices are called silicon on sapphire, or SOS). The choice of insulator depends largely on intended application, with sapphire being used for high-performance radio frequency (RF) and radiation-sensitive applications, and silicon dioxide for diminished short channel effects in microelectronics devices.[2] The insulating layer and topmost silicon layer also vary widely with application.[3] The first industrial implementation of SOI was announced by IBM in August 1998.[4]
Sapphire can be used in so many other applications apart from consumer tech products or just for Apple's use. There are plenty of sapphire in the medical field which Apple seems to be getting into. Hospitals may no longer bother with those standard steel blade or tungsten carbide scalpels and use sapphire ones instead if the prices come down enough. Sapphire blade scalpels can hold a sharper edge longer. I'm thinking that sapphire could be used in artificial joints if alloyed with something like Liquidmetal. It just seems as though Apple could really make some serious money from various sapphire uses.
Scalpel blades aren't reusable. No need to make the blade last longer.
Other companies just don't realize they aren't nearly nimble enough to keep up with Apple.
The problem is that to be nimble enough they need to move in a specific direction long before Apple gives a clue, so the competitors are always jumping too late to catch Apple. Also,, like with the 64-bit A7 chip...no one could figure out what they did that for, now they know that it was to support a new graphic language and "Metal." In a few months Apple will dump their iPhone6 and new iPad and (Only Tim knows what else) on the market that is already flush with around 100 million A7 devices capable of handling the new faster graphic iOS8.
Life is hard. It's even harder when you are Apple's competitor. (Sorry Duke)
I guess it's all those taxes Mass collects that has attracted Apple to it.
Uh, why?
Taxes collected go to the government. They don't go to the company's piggy bank.
If one California county has a sales tax of 7.75% ($77.50 on a $1000 Mac) and another one has 8.75% ($87.50 on a $1000 Mac), guess what the difference to Apple's profit is? Zero dollars.
Silicon on insulator
For silicon on insulator optical devices, see silicon photonics.
SIMOX process
Silicon on insulator (SOI) technology refers to the use of a layered silicon-insulator-silicon substrate in place of conventional silicon substrates in semiconductor manufacturing, especially microelectronics, to reduce parasitic device capacitance, thereby improving performance.[1] SOI-based devices differ from conventional silicon-built devices in that the silicon junction is above an electrical insulator, typically silicon dioxide or sapphire (these types of devices are called silicon on sapphire, or SOS).
Oh, what a surprise is in store for competitors if Apple has plans for Sapphire in this fashion! The sweet thing about Apple using Sapphire in various ways to differentiate their products is that for the competitors it isn't a matter of buying the needed sapphire on the open market, nor do you just order 6000 Sapphire ovens from a catalog.
Comments
It's interesting that a critical component of many of their products is being manufactured in the US. Makes me think their long-term plan is to bring much of manufacturing back to the states, or at least a portion of it for the US market. Alternatively, this could just be a move to keep IP in the states, and not have it raided by China, absorbing the costs of shipping sapphire.
Also, this small facility might just be a testbed for R&D on the manufacturing process, not a full production facility or even an R&D facility for new materials. Apple is becoming quite good at manufacturing as they continue to build their vertical ecosystem.
GT has been around for a while and is a US based company. To date, they have been purely a capital equipment manufacturer. They make the equipment that makes the saphire. Semiconductor facilities and other companies that wanted sapphire bought their equipment, then made their own sapphire themselves. The Apple deal is standing GT a little bit on its head and now turning it into a sapphire supplier. In a sense it has become its own biggest customer and now has to buy its own equipment and then use that equipment to deliver sapphire to Apple.
Hopefully they have hired all new experienced people to run the manufacturing side of things. Manufacturing requires a whole different mentality than development (in fact almost the exact opposite mindset in quite a few cases). As I understand it GT is going to be an OEM supplier and Apple isn't doing any of the manufacturing themselves.
Great info, thanks. So, in a nutshell, Apple has side-stepped middleman for their requirements.
We're not only entering the Diamond Age*, we're entering the Sapphire Age.
*Neal Stephenson reference
Long GTAT, also music to my ears, sounds like another piece in the puzzle, very good news.
I thought that was in the 1970's.
[VIDEO]
I thought that was in the 1970's.
No, that was the Golden Age... or was it the Plastic Fantastic Age?
Great info, thanks. So, in a nutshell, Apple has side-stepped middleman for their requirements.
Not so much sidestepped them as created something out of nothing. Hopefully GTAT is nimble enough to pull off the transition.
For silicon on insulator optical devices, see silicon photonics.
SIMOX process
Silicon on insulator (SOI) technology refers to the use of a layered silicon-insulator-silicon substrate in place of conventional silicon substrates in semiconductor manufacturing, especially microelectronics, to reduce parasitic device capacitance, thereby improving performance.[1] SOI-based devices differ from conventional silicon-built devices in that the silicon junction is above an electrical insulator, typically silicon dioxide or sapphire (these types of devices are called silicon on sapphire, or SOS). The choice of insulator depends largely on intended application, with sapphire being used for high-performance radio frequency (RF) and radiation-sensitive applications, and silicon dioxide for diminished short channel effects in microelectronics devices.[2] The insulating layer and topmost silicon layer also vary widely with application.[3] The first industrial implementation of SOI was announced by IBM in August 1998.[4]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_on_insulator
Sapphire can be used in so many other applications apart from consumer tech products or just for Apple's use. There are plenty of sapphire in the medical field which Apple seems to be getting into. Hospitals may no longer bother with those standard steel blade or tungsten carbide scalpels and use sapphire ones instead if the prices come down enough. Sapphire blade scalpels can hold a sharper edge longer. I'm thinking that sapphire could be used in artificial joints if alloyed with something like Liquidmetal. It just seems as though Apple could really make some serious money from various sapphire uses.
Scalpel blades aren't reusable. No need to make the blade last longer.
The problem is that to be nimble enough they need to move in a specific direction long before Apple gives a clue, so the competitors are always jumping too late to catch Apple. Also,, like with the 64-bit A7 chip...no one could figure out what they did that for, now they know that it was to support a new graphic language and "Metal." In a few months Apple will dump their iPhone6 and new iPad and (Only Tim knows what else) on the market that is already flush with around 100 million A7 devices capable of handling the new faster graphic iOS8.
Life is hard. It's even harder when you are Apple's competitor. (Sorry Duke)
I guess it's all those taxes Mass collects that has attracted Apple to it.
Uh, why?
Taxes collected go to the government. They don't go to the company's piggy bank.
If one California county has a sales tax of 7.75% ($77.50 on a $1000 Mac) and another one has 8.75% ($87.50 on a $1000 Mac), guess what the difference to Apple's profit is? Zero dollars.
Oh, what a surprise is in store for competitors if Apple has plans for Sapphire in this fashion! The sweet thing about Apple using Sapphire in various ways to differentiate their products is that for the competitors it isn't a matter of buying the needed sapphire on the open market, nor do you just order 6000 Sapphire ovens from a catalog.