Once upon a time, Advanced Micro Devices
Rumor has it that AMD no longer will sell graphics chips to power Apple's laptop systems. This comes only days after the semiconductor designer was reported to be getting this close to a bigger Apple deal rather than a smaller one. If all of these hearsay stories are true, maybe Tim Cook isn't any more forgiving of supplier errors than Steve Jobs was.
The "if" really matters, though. The original report on NVIDIA
That being said, blogger Charlie Demerjian has some backup this time. Analyst firm Longbow Research poked at its own insider sources and came up with a very similar story. According to Longbow analyst JoAnne Feeney, AMD is losing Apple business worth about $45 million in 2011, while NVIDIA gains a similar-sized chunk of revenue in 2012. Feeney has been known to ride to AMD's rescue in previous wars of words, but not this time.
The two sources differ when you dig deeper. In Demerjian's version, Apple soured on AMD when the company failed to churn out enough next-generation laptop processors to replace Intel
Apple should sell more laptops next year -- but main processors tend to come with acceptable built-in graphics solutions these days. Demerjian notes a precipitous drop for graphics card attach rates in ultrathin notebooks as a result. However, NVIDIA would rebut that claim by noting a record number of design wins in Intel's new Ivy Bridge processor that combines graphics.
The Apple opportunity would add less than 2% to NVIDIA's annual graphics sales and AMD's graphics division may lose about 3% of its revenue. But the Apple opportunity is actually bigger than Apple itself -- if you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere.
Just ask audio-chip specialist Cirrus Logic
NVIDIA is in the middle of morphing from a graphics specialist into a mobile processor wrangler. Getting a foot in Apple's door could be invaluable in that multiyear quest. Learn more about the trillion-dollar opportunity in front on NVIDIA in a brand-new special report. You'll see some familiar names passing by, but NVIDIA is the star of this masterpiece. Grab your copy right now; this is a rare combination of totally free and extremely valuable information.