TSMC to Begin Trial Production of Apple's A6X Chip This Quarter

[MacRumors]

AFP reports on claims from Taiwanese newspaper Commercial Times indicating that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is set to begin trial production of Apple's A6X chip sometime this quarter. The chip is currently used in the fourth-generation iPad introduced in October.

The Taiwanese company has been contracted to manufacture the A6X chip, which drives Apple's iPad4 tablet, with trial production set for the first quarter of this year, Taiwan's Commercial Times reported.

The move is the latest in a strings of efforts by Apple to switch mass manufacturing contracts away from Samsung, it said.

Apple has been rumored for some time to be trying to switch to TSMC for production of its A-series chips, with some reports claiming that TSMC would be coming on board late this year for next-generation chips. More recent reports have claimed that TSMC could start production for Apple as soon as the second quarter, perhaps in line with today's rumor of trial production in the first quarter of the year.

Article Link: TSMC to Begin Trial Production of Apple's A6X Chip This Quarter

[hleewell]

Here we go...

[Ingot]

Well this is good news indeed.

[JayJayAbels]

Thatta boy Cook!

[Compile 'em all]

Bye bye, Samsung!

[hleewell]

Originally Posted by Compile 'em all

Bye bye, Samsung!

Not quite, hehe

----------

Originally Posted by HobeSoundDarryl

Once again all the celebrations about how Apple is sticking it to Samsung ignoring the fact that Apple is probably setting up the next Samsung-like sequence of events with TSMC. Sure, TSMC is not in the consumer products business right now but after Apple shows them the way and they watch Apple rake it in, it's only a matter of time before someone there sees the same light that Samsung saw.

Samsung regards Apple as just another customer, albeit a very big one.
Terry Gou regards Steve Jobs as "a God".



Then again...who knows.

[Mike MA]

It'll be exciting to see how much revenue Samsung will lose without Apple as its customer in the longterm.

[irDigital0l]

Originally Posted by Compile 'em all

Bye bye, Samsung!

Remember what happened to 'Bye bye, Google'?

hahahaha

[TheMTtakeover]

Originally Posted by irDigital0l

Remember what happened to 'Bye bye, Google'?

hahahaha

We got a better map app and got rid of the stupid default youtube app...?

[BvizioN]

Originally Posted by irDigital0l

Remember what happened to 'Bye bye, Google'?

hahahaha

Yes, how can it be forgotten??

The world stoped spinning!
The planet froze! Humanity entered the dark age!
We will never be the same again.

[Compile 'em all]

Originally Posted by irDigital0l

Remember what happened to 'Bye bye, Google'?

hahahaha

Google released Google Maps for iOS with turn by turn navigation?

[chrmjenkins]

Should be better on power consumption since TSMC will be using their 28nm process. Would be interesting if new iPads had better battery life all of the sudden.

[Radio]

Try this on for size

Apple still needs Samsung.

At this point tsmc cannot produce enough chips.

[ChristianJapan]

Let see what the yield and quality will be ...but good to get more then one supplier

[chrmjenkins]

Originally Posted by Radio

Try this on for size

Apple still needs Samsung.

At this point tsmc cannot produce enough chips.

TSMC is higher volume than Samsung. It would take time to ramp but they could do it without question. My guess is that once they switch, all new processors will be TSMC. Legacy processors like A5r2 will be converted or phased out.

Originally Posted by ChristianJapan

Let see what the yield and quality will be ...but good to get more then one supplier

It's a one or the other thing. Their process libraries are different and require different designs. It's not a copy and paste job.

[hayesk]

Originally Posted by Radio

Try this on for size

Apple still needs Samsung.

At this point tsmc cannot produce enough chips.

The key words here being "at this point". Apple can throw a billion dollars at TSMC and say "go build us a factory." In a year or two, will Apple need Samsung?

[name99]

Originally Posted by Radio

Try this on for size

Apple still needs Samsung.

At this point tsmc cannot produce enough chips.

Maybe, maybe not.
Apple has, over the past few years, showing a remarkable willingness to finance the expansion of plant and tools of its suppliers (subject, of course, to various covenants about who owns the improvements, and how they can be used). For all we know, Apple has helped TSMC build a complete new fab line, and has grand plans for how it might be used, but those plans include restrictions like it only gets used to make Apple's chips, and the very latest Broadcom and Qualcomm chips (which will only be sold to Apple, not on the open market).

[Newton70]

Excellent news, Samsung can now better concentrate on making cheap, plastic phones.

[ItsWelshy]

Yay!

TSMC for Chips
Sharp for Screen

Bye Bye Samsdung....

Waiting for the headline "Samsung follow Apple into TSMC chip trial"

[Resseh]

Originally Posted by ItsWelshy

Yay!

TSMC for Chips
Sharp for Screen

Bye Bye Samsdung....

Waiting for the headline "Samsung follow Apple into TSMC chip trial"

on the macbooks, samsung's screens are better quality than the LG ones. with people swapping them until they get a samsung screen. cant believe this makes you happy. quite sad really

[Tankmaze]

hopefully will be ready when its mass produce for the 5S

[RamGuy]

Originally Posted by Resseh

on the macbooks, samsung's screens are better quality than the LG ones. with people swapping them until they get a samsung screen. cant believe this makes you happy. quite sad really

This is not entirely true. It all depends on the screen size and MacBook model. For the MacBook Air 13", at least for the 2011 models I found the LG panels to be superior in terms of viewing angles and raw calibration. The gamma profile and colours were better with the LG panel.

With the 11" model it all seemed to be the other way around, but when it comes to LCD panels you can't really compare between sizes as the Samsung 11" panel is vastly different from the 13" ones, same goes for the LG panels. If someone measures the LG panel of the 11" to be inferior to the Samsung panels you would be foolish to think this counts for the 13", Pro 13" and Pro 15" as well.


When I had my MacBook Pro 17" 2010 model (Samsung) and MacBook Pro 17" 2011 model (LG) side-by-side there was no doubt about the LG one being superior to the Samsung one. Samsung has this bad habit of over-saturated colours making for horrid gamma profiles and calibrations way out of any kind of natural charts. It might look good for some, but it's not remotely close to being realistic.

To be honest Samsung doesn't go all out on the colour saturation on the panels used on Apple notebooks and this is most likely due to Apple's very strict quality control and demands from their suppliers but my experience from MacBook Air 13" and MacBook Pro 17 the last years the LG panels have mostly been superior if you are looking for the best calibrated panels out of the lot.


The iMac 27" doesn't feature Samsung panels at all, and the 2012 models are one of the best "out-of-box" calibrated monitors for it's price range currently on the market. I don't know about the 21,5" one, but considering it's now all IPS and Samsung tends to not do IPS I guess they aren't involved in those either and they've had some pretty decent reviews as well.


Not the mention the Retina models, all being non-Samsung IPS panels and they are looking great with really good out-of-the-box calibration and gamma profile for notebooks.



If you take a look at computer monitors as a whole, Samsung doesn't really offer much in the high-end calibrated market at all. They mostly have some decent PVA panels, and some horrid TN-panels with colours way out of the chart and that's mostly it. You would normally be looking at Eizo, NEC or Dell if you wanted some decent calibrated ones and possibly Asus's Pro line if you aren't willing to pay the premium for the other brands.

Hell, take a look at Samsung's own line of premium notebooks and tablets and you see next to none capable of being close to anything premium in terms of colour calibration and gamma profile out-of-the-box. They are beaten by Asus on quite a few notebooks and their Inifity tablet beats all current Samsung ones.


And you have a pretty good example with this whole Samsung does their own PLS thing instead of IPS. PLS is basically Samsung own proprietary answer to IPS and they are both pretty much the same thing, rocking the same good viewing angels and whatnot but whereas we have many decent calibrated IPS monitors, all PLS monitors comes oversaturated out-of-the-box.


Same goes for Samsung televisions, they all feature horrible colour profiles out-of-the-box pushing contrast way off the chart. They look awesome once you've gone through some serious calibration, but lets face it barley anyone actually calibrate their display in any sensible way resulting in you being better of with a high quality Panasonic Plasma or something other than a Samsung LED-LCD television in terms of colour reproduction.


All in all, I can't see the sad part in Samsung being left out in the dust in terms of display panels. When it comes to SSD's though I certainly hope Apple don't drop the ball on Samsung until they have either Intel or Micron on the team. Going all Toshiba SSD would be downright silly in terms of both performance and stability.

[louis.b]

Originally Posted by Resseh

on the macbooks, samsung's screens are better quality than the LG ones. with people swapping them until they get a samsung screen. cant believe this makes you happy. quite sad really

You should be sadder when Samsung holds Apple ransom if they're still the dominant supplier.

----------

Counting down till the Samsung "enthusiasts" barge in here to admonish Apple and praise Samsung' technology

[UBS28]

Originally Posted by ItsWelshy

Yay!

TSMC for Chips
Sharp for Screen

Bye Bye Samsdung....

Waiting for the headline "Samsung follow Apple into TSMC chip trial"

And how is this good news? Samsung is pretty much market leader in anything ( including smartphones ) for a reason. They produce quality.

Good luck for Apple if they are boycotting Samsung, it will hurt Apple more than Samsung in the end as Apple products will turn to garbage without the quality of Samsung.

[Explicitic]

Originally Posted by Newton70

Excellent news, Samsung can now better concentrate on making cheap, plastic phones.

I've really never understood why people continue to call Samsung's phones "cheap," as if the plastic used is terrible quality.