Apple promises to buy $30B worth of U.S.-made chips from Broadcom
Apple Inc. said today it has penciled in a new multiyear deal with Broadcom Inc. that’s expected to be worth more than $30 billion, in what is the iPhone maker’s largest commitment to U.S. manufacturing so far.
The deal, announced Wednesday morning, will see more than 15 billion chips manufactured on U.S. soil, and will also help to fund a $1.5 billion expansion of Broadcom’s existing chip fabrication plant in Fort Collins, Colorado. Neither company provided a timeline for when the new production capacity is expected to come online.
Chipmaker Broadcom has been a partner of Apple’s for years, but until now it has primarily supplied it with connectivity components for its iPhones and other devices. But the new deal expands that relationship, with Broadcom set to provide Apple with wireless components that will enable its devices to connect to Wi-Fi, cellular and Bluetooth networks.
Some details of the expanded partnership were first revealed on Monday by Broadcom in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The chipmaker disclosed that it has entered into a new long-term agreement with Apple that would see it develop and manufacture “custom ASIC silicon products” that would be used in the company’s devices through 2031. ASICs are application-specific integrated circuits that can be customized to make them more efficient at specific workloads, and they’re also increasingly being used for some artificial intelligence applications.
