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I was at a keynote yesterday and for whatever reason Apple is still not listed as a fabless semiconductor company on the "Top Semiconductor Company Slides". According to industry sources Apple is buying billions of dollars worth of wafers every year from TSMC and Samsung so yes Apple is a very large fabless semiconductor company.
Clearly Apple is the big swing for TSMC and Samsung. Apple used TSMC exclusively for 20nm in 2014, split 14/16nm in 2015, and is back with TSMC for 16nm the 2H of this year. Next year I'm told Apple will be exclusive to TSMC for 10nm but that may change if there are 10nm delays or capacity issues of course, like it did at 14/16nm.
SMIC certainly had a good year. It will not be long before SMIC owns the China 28nm business I'm guessing. Intel is still not considered a real foundry?
apple is not a fabless semiconductor company. they don't sell semiconductors. in what way are they different (apart from size) from other companies that design chips ofr themselves.
bow that fabless is so large there is a lot of double counting going on. q and t most obviously. if you added a it would be worse
