“Apple Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. were rebuffed in separate attempts to invest cash with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. in a bid to secure exclusive access to smartphone chips, people with knowledge of the matter said,” Ian King, Tim Culpan and Adam Satariano report for Bloomberg. “Both proposals included investments, each of more than $1 billion, for the world’s largest custom maker of chips to set aside production dedicated to making chips exclusively for them, said the people, who declined to be identified because the details are not public.”

“The two companies are trying to satisfy booming demand for smartphones, a market estimated by to be worth $219.1 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Industries. Any deal would give Apple an alternate supplier to Samsung Electronics Co., which builds the main chip used in the iPhone and iPad and is also its biggest rival in smartphones,” King, Culpan and Satariano report. “Qualcomm needs to boost supply, since shortages are starting to limit earnings.”

King, Culpan and Satariano report, “TSMC wants to keep the flexibility to switch its production between customers and products. TSMC Chairman Morris Chang told investors last month that he was willing to devote one or even two factories to a single customer… ‘You have to be careful. Once that product migrates, what are going to do with that dedicated fab?’ said Chief Financial Officer Lora Ho said. ‘We would like to keep the flexibility.’”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Smart company. Why sell you soul when you don’t need to? Especially to a company whose decision-making abilities have lately been rather questionable.

It’s good to see Cook finally trying to get out of bed with Samsung, but he’s likely quoting movie lines today: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”