Apple Reportedly Tapping TSMC for 20-nm Quad-Core Chips with Late 2013 Production

[Rocketman]

Intel only fabs for itself. So that'd simply not be an option.

That will change for Apple when they get desperate enough due to Apple's installation of the Post PC era. The problem is they will wait till it's too late and they are capital constrained for R&D for a few years and Apple is vastly outstripping them by concatenating worldwide skilled labor and IP and factories. F Intel. Sell.

Rocketman

 

[firewood]

There is no evidence that anybody can do better processors in the desktop/laptop power sweet spot than Intel just because they're big enough.

That may not be stay the sweet spot moving forward. Desktops are rapidly becoming dinosaurs, tablets are starting to outsell laptops, and other companies have proven faster processor designs at other points on the power curve (certainly IBM at the high end, and hearing-aid DSPs at the low end).

IBM thought they had the best talent and an insurmountable advantage in computer performance... until Seymore Cray, working in much smaller companies, came along, and took the performance crown away for nearly a quarter century.

Somehow I recall that Intel only fabs for itself. So that'd simply not be an option.

Intel has looked for some amount of foundry business in the past. Some newish FPGA company, IIRC, reportedly used Intel fabs.

 

[krravi]

That may not be stay the sweet spot moving forward. Desktops are rapidly becoming dinosaurs, tablets are starting to outsell laptops, and other companies have proven faster processor designs at other points on the power curve (certainly IBM at the high end, and hearing-aid DSPs at the low end).

IBM thought they had the best talent and an insurmountable advantage in computer performance... until Seymore Cray, working in much smaller companies, came along, and took the performance crown away for nearly a quarter century.



Intel has looked for some amount of foundry business in the past. Some newish FPGA company, IIRC, reportedly used Intel fabs.

IBM and Toshiba joined together and designed the Cell Processor for the Sony PS3. At one time the US Military bought 100's of them and ran linux on it and was as good as a supercomputer.

Those processors were great for video intensive processes. I can vouch for that personally as I have the best Netflix experience on a PS3 and I have tried it on a Wii, Xbox 360 and even a Mac Mini hooked up to my TV.

IBM made some blade servers with that processor but unfortunately programming for it was a huge challenge. It never took off as it was intended.

 

[bigpics]

Only because the fastest ARM cores, before today, have been designed by smaller companies for a much lower power envelope.

With MSWord getting ported to the ARM, hundreds of thousands more iOS apps than Mac apps, more workload getting farmed to the "cloud", data centers looking to lower their total energy costs, number crunching moving to parallel arrays and GPUs, etc.; legacy x86 cores may start getting pushed out of the consumer and enterprise mainstream, squeezed between ARM on one hand, and data centers plus new Big-Iron on the other. x86 could get pushed into a niche, just as the once dominant 360/370 ISA was. Intel CEOs should be paranoid.

Interesting speculation. Here's, hopefully, some more....

Apple and Intel have had a fairly good working relationship since they began negotiating Apple's switch to their CPU's, most recently and notably with Thunderbolt (regardless of whether it's a big success, the next Firewire or somewhere between, with the latter two currently looking most likely).

Meanwhile, TSMC is a company with a history of issues. And, Apple's announced it would like to do more subcontracting at least with American companies.

So if you're right, Intel can read the same tea leaves. They are apparently busting hump on Atom development, and they have a lot of talent, resources, history of good management, long-term vision to draw on. So a move in foundering for other companies could be part of a strategic transition. Ergo, even as we post, Apple and Intel may have already begun to explore building chips to Apple specs (not that I'm saying they are or ever will).

And as with Thunderbolt, if Apple wants to stick with exclusively ARM cores, I imagine Intel can not only handle that, but offer to put some of Atom's own tech into the SOC as a whole (Thunderbolt style, in reverse). Maybe even some cross-licensing of Apple's own chip design features for Atom.

That could blow other ARM manufacturers completely away in terms of Apple's iDevice performance and help Intel with Atom. Apple could also use Intel chips if they ever chose to, especially if Atom reaches parity with or pulls away from ARM (with a little special sauce from Apple who would in this hypothetical scenario always get first dibs on new chips (they have more bargaining power since they'd bring their own new found chip chops into this proposed deal that they lacked when they shifted to Intel as x86 customer).

 

[G51989]

That will change for Apple when they get desperate enough due to Apple's installation of the Post PC era. The problem is they will wait till it's too late and they are capital constrained for R&D for a few years and Apple is vastly outstripping them by concatenating worldwide skilled labor and IP and factories. F Intel. Sell.

Rocketman

There is no such thing as the Post PC era, it doesn't exist. Its a marketing term invented by Apple so people buy Garbage like Ipads, when they could be buying something useful. Like a Mac. An iPad is not a replacement for a PC or Mac for most people. Now for people that only like Angry Birds and Facebook. Sure. iPads and tablets for a good number of people, but not all people Are an expansion of the PC. Not a replacement, unless all you do is play Angry birds and go on Facebook.



First off, Intel does not need Apple to survive. That is a hilarious thought, are forgetting enterprise? Gamers? data centers? Super computing? integrated systems? Apple doesn't do any of the above.

The fact is, Intel is not capital constrained, the Desktop PC will stay very popular, sure it might not be your go to for everything machine, but it will most likely turn into a hub for your home media, work, and play. Which is already kinda is.

I hope you don't mean F intel, because the very best ARM offerings atm are about equivalent to a Mid Grade Pentium 4 from 10 year ago. Apple isn't capable of building a Laptop or Desktop chip as good as Intel can.

----------

That may not be stay the sweet spot moving forward. Desktops are rapidly becoming dinosaurs, tablets are starting to outsell laptops, and other companies have proven faster processor designs at other points on the power curve (certainly IBM at the high end, and hearing-aid DSPs at the low end).

Desktops are not becomming dinosaurs, I'm not sure where people are getting this from, sure some people who don't do real work, or don't need real features and do nothing but watch movies and play angry birds can get along just fine with a iPad, but anyone who needs real features, real performance....lets see....

PC gamers.....Data centers.....servers.....web hosting......cloud storage....... enterprise......small and large business ( enterprise ).....goverement......

Sorry people, an Ipad can't do it all.

And as I said, the very very best ARM chips are just starting to be able to hit X86 CPU performance from 10 years ago.

IBM thought they had the best talent and an insurmountable advantage in computer performance... until Seymore Cray, working in much smaller companies, came along, and took the performance crown away for nearly a quarter century.

Thats a very poor comparison, Cray never made his own CPUs, he just put a bunch of components that already existed together in an amazing way.

Building a CPU from the ground up is very different. It requires a ton of money, which Apple has. And it requires great engineers, which apple can buy, but it requires tons of experience, and years of research.

The fact of the matter is, as it Stands, Apple is well over a decade away from being able to make a CPU as good as an Intel Desktop or Laptop CPU, and thats if they go full force into it.


And to be honest, what the hell is wrong with some of you people? Why would you want Intel out of the Mac? Intel makes the best consumer CPU's in the world, hands down. There is ZERO competition, isn't Apple all about providing the best user experience? Intel CPU's give the Mac desktop and Laptops tons of performance, great battery life, and compatibility with multiplate OS's, if Apple replaced intel CPU's with some ****** in house ARM chip. I could see Mac sales crashing, very quickly.

 

[fpsBeaTt]

you're forgetting about the acquisition premium.

A 50% acquisition premium is insufficient?

 

[Movaiz]

A step forward but will it be enough? When is Samsung planning to move to 20nm? And why is everyone at least 18months behind Intel in process technology?

 

[the8thark]

Mostly because many of us are lazy to do that. Also, in programing, != is used as not equal too.

I see your point and ti does make sense.

But . . .

alt =
or
shift 1 =

One has 2 key presses, the other has 3. Seems it's more like a force of habit possibly coming from programming and not being lazy.

 

[Ries]

Market cap is the price of a company, with some extra for acquisition premium, but yes, market cap is the reference point.

You should read up on what market cap is... it's the share price * the number of outstanding shares. Not the total amount of shares. It represents only some of the companys worth.

 

[jouster]

Because last I checked TSMC is worth about 2.2 Trllion?

2.2 trillion what? Donuts? Certainly not dollars.

alt plus = gives this
≠

That is not equals to.
We Mac users don't have to use substitute symbols like =! when the actual symbol is so easy to use ≠.

Damn. Been a Mac user since my 1999 PowerBook G3 and thought I was good with keyboard shortcuts, but didn't know this one. Sweet!

 

[RobertMartens]

alt plus = gives this
≠

That is not equals to.
We Mac users don't have to use substitute symbols like =! when the actual symbol is so easy to use ≠.

≠≠≠≠≠ cool

and I thought computer nerds wrote not equals like this !=

Are you writing in some language I don't know?

 

[Thomas2006]

...but so long for bootcamp and Windows, if they start using their chips all across their hardware.

Now that Windows can run on the ARM processor I doubt that will be much of a problem, especially since the ARM processors that will be used in the Macs will have to be 64-bit, and that will be at least another year.

 

[the8thark]

≠≠≠≠≠ cool

and I thought computer nerds wrote not equals like this !=

Are you writing in some language I don't know?

Yes. It's called English

. . . just kidding.
Not all of us are computer nerds. Either way is cool I guess.

 

[theBB]

You should read up on what market cap is... it's the share price * the number of outstanding shares. Not the total amount of shares. It represents only some of the companys worth.

If you buy all of the outstanding shares of a company, you own all of the company, as you own 100% of the decision making capability. Are you arguing about price vs. value?

 

[G51989]

Now that Windows can run on the ARM processor I doubt that will be much of a problem, especially since the ARM processors that will be used in the Macs will have to be 64-bit, and that will be at least another year.

Why would you want ARM's in Macs? The performance would be a huge downgrade.

----------

A step forward but will it be enough? When is Samsung planning to move to 20nm? And why is everyone at least 18months behind Intel in process technology?

Because Intel has the best fabs in the world, and they clearly have the best engineers.

Still, why ARM"s in Macs? The best ARM chips are almost 10 years behind Intel/AMD chips in performance.

 

[iphoneclassic]

Chip design and fab are necessary evils. It is neither easy nor cheap and there is not much profit at the end.

-IBM Power7... high end processor retails for $10K+. Very limited quantities.
-Intel Itanium, $2500+. Never sold in large quantities. It was/is an epic failure. HP sink 3-4 Billion on it.
-Intel Server Grade processors Sell for $1000+. Reasonable market.
-Intel Desktop X86_64. $100-$300. High Volume.
-ARM based mobile processors. $20-$40. Ultra high volume.

There are again GPUs in the mix. Nowadays most of the supercomputers are based on GPUs.

Which ever way you look at it there is no money, in this business.

 

[drblank]

isn't this article misleading just a little? I know enough about semiconductor mfg processing to know that these semiconductor companies buy the actual mfg equipment from any one of about 4 companies. Applied Materials being the biggest. The other thing that's kinda misleading is that it is the Main ITRS node is 22 nm, and the Stopgap half-node is at 20 nm,. I haven't read that the Main ITRS node is at 20nm, the next step is 16nm in 2014 time frame, and then it's supposed to go to even lower.

I think it would be interesting to figure out which of these semiconductor companies are using which mfg equipment.

22 nm is the current limit, but 14nm is supposed to be by 2014.

What the problem with these semiconductor companies is as new and smaller die sizes come out, they need to update their mfg plants with new equipment. Equipment isn't cheap and it takes a while to replace their existing equipment, or simply build a new plant, and then revamp the older plant.

IF there is anyone out there that can elaborate or correct me, by all means, do so, this is just from what I have read. As they say, we can't always believe everything we read.

----------

There is no such thing as the Post PC era, it doesn't exist. Its a marketing term invented by Apple so people buy Garbage like Ipads, when they could be buying something useful. Like a Mac. An iPad is not a replacement for a PC or Mac for most people. Now for people that only like Angry Birds and Facebook. Sure. iPads and tablets for a good number of people, but not all people Are an expansion of the PC. Not a replacement, unless all you do is play Angry birds and go on Facebook.



First off, Intel does not need Apple to survive. That is a hilarious thought, are forgetting enterprise? Gamers? data centers? Super computing? integrated systems? Apple doesn't do any of the above.

The fact is, Intel is not capital constrained, the Desktop PC will stay very popular, sure it might not be your go to for everything machine, but it will most likely turn into a hub for your home media, work, and play. Which is already kinda is.

I hope you don't mean F intel, because the very best ARM offerings atm are about equivalent to a Mid Grade Pentium 4 from 10 year ago. Apple isn't capable of building a Laptop or Desktop chip as good as Intel can.

----------



Desktops are not becomming dinosaurs, I'm not sure where people are getting this from, sure some people who don't do real work, or don't need real features and do nothing but watch movies and play angry birds can get along just fine with a iPad, but anyone who needs real features, real performance....lets see....

PC gamers.....Data centers.....servers.....web hosting......cloud storage....... enterprise......small and large business ( enterprise ).....goverement......

Sorry people, an Ipad can't do it all.

And as I said, the very very best ARM chips are just starting to be able to hit X86 CPU performance from 10 years ago.



Thats a very poor comparison, Cray never made his own CPUs, he just put a bunch of components that already existed together in an amazing way.

Building a CPU from the ground up is very different. It requires a ton of money, which Apple has. And it requires great engineers, which apple can buy, but it requires tons of experience, and years of research.

The fact of the matter is, as it Stands, Apple is well over a decade away from being able to make a CPU as good as an Intel Desktop or Laptop CPU, and thats if they go full force into it.


And to be honest, what the **** is wrong with some of you people? Why would you want Intel out of the Mac? Intel makes the best consumer CPU's in the world, hands down. There is ZERO competition, isn't Apple all about providing the best user experience? Intel CPU's give the Mac desktop and Laptops tons of performance, great battery life, and compatibility with multiplate OS's, if Apple replaced intel CPU's with some ****** in house ARM chip. I could see Mac sales crashing, very quickly.

Well, i wouldn't say that Apple is going to switch processors from X86 to ARM for their laptops/desktops any time soon, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are testing it just to see what the speeds and feeds are. For years, there has been debate on which is better CISC or RISC. And I'm sure that debate will surface again and again.

I would say that Intel sometimes gets VERY arrogant, since they are the one's making the more popular processor. But Apple had to use an ARM chip and Intel was sleeping when they asked them for something they could use. Yeah, I'm sure Intel can catch up to Apple with ARM chip design, but so far, they haven't. In the mean time, Intel has been a bunch of cry babies and kind of silly in getting involved with Microsoft trying to push these Ultrabooks in that marketing campaign. Microsoft should have done it by themselves and Intel should have told Microsoft that they don't want to damage their relationship with other customers that don't make Windows boxes.

Intel needs to be more like Switzerland in that neutral zone. Otherwise, they'll piss off customers.

 

[blackcrayon]

There is no such thing as the Post PC era, it doesn't exist. Its a marketing term invented by Apple so people buy Garbage like Ipads, when they could be buying something useful. .

For a "marketing term", they sure have never used it much in any kind of marketing. But I do appreciate the reminder that "Ipads" are useless garbage. Without you, someone might actually recognize how useful they are for themselves!

 

[mossme89]

Clearly I'm no expert, but why do these chips take so long to manufacture? I would think 6 months tops. Let's say 1 month for design, 1 month for final design/manufacturing, 2 months for testing/tweaking, and 2 months to get the final product ready.

Are they just waiting for technology to catch up and that's why it takes forever?

 

[G51989]

For a "marketing term", they sure have never used it much in any kind of marketing. But I do appreciate the reminder that "Ipads" are useless garbage. Without you, someone might actually recognize how useful they are for themselves!

How is an iPad useful for anything besides consumption? Anything you can do on an iPad you can do on a Mid range Laptop or high end netbook, you can do more on those machines and do it better.

 

[Cheffy Dave]

To me this should put an end to the speculation on wether a revised iPad 3 is going to be released this year: Probably not. I think we will see a revised iPad 3, in March of 2013, with this new 20nm chip, along with the iPad 4th. I don't think they will use Lightning connector, just like they didn't revise the iPhone 4S's connector.

Sorry, but Lightning will be the new connector, across the board, from here on out

 

[thasan]

How is an iPad useful for anything besides consumption? Anything you can do on an iPad you can do on a Mid range Laptop or high end netbook, you can do more on those machines and do it better.

Except that most laptops aren't touchscreen...so u can't play angry birds or fruit ninja...
Frankly, when traveling by bus or train etc, I don't see people trying to read books etc awkwardly with their laptops.
And then there are much more stuffs iPads are convenient with.

 

[jacksonkeller]

Clearly I'm no expert, but why do these chips take so long to manufacture? I would think 6 months tops. Let's say 1 month for design, 1 month for final design/manufacturing, 2 months for testing/tweaking, and 2 months to get the final product ready.

Are they just waiting for technology to catch up and that's why it takes forever?

I've worked in wafer fabs most of my adult life. It takes a minimum of 6 months, by the time you qualify every tool in the fab for every layer of the chip.You send wafers out for testing at various points during manufacturing. You tweak an implant layer, test a different etch after a metal layer, try a different reticle on that photo layer etc etc. It takes the average lot of 25 wafers 30 days in the fab from bare silicon to a finished production wafer. Then it goes on to test/bump/dicing. And depending on the chip, each of those steps could be at different plants at different places on the globe.

----------

isn't this article misleading just a little? I know enough about semiconductor mfg processing to know that these semiconductor companies buy the actual mfg equipment from any one of about 4 companies. Applied Materials being the biggest. The other thing that's kinda misleading is that it is the Main ITRS node is 22 nm, and the Stopgap half-node is at 20 nm,. I haven't read that the Main ITRS node is at 20nm, the next step is 16nm in 2014 time frame, and then it's supposed to go to even lower.

I think it would be interesting to figure out which of these semiconductor companies are using which mfg equipment.

22 nm is the current limit, but 14nm is supposed to be by 2014.

What the problem with these semiconductor companies is as new and smaller die sizes come out, they need to update their mfg plants with new equipment. Equipment isn't cheap and it takes a while to replace their existing equipment, or simply build a new plant, and then revamp the older plant.

IF there is anyone out there that can elaborate or correct me, by all means, do so, this is just from what I have read. As they say, we can't always believe everything we read.

----------



Well, i wouldn't say that Apple is going to switch processors from X86 to ARM for their laptops/desktops any time soon, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are testing it just to see what the speeds and feeds are. For years, there has been debate on which is better CISC or RISC. And I'm sure that debate will surface again and again.

I would say that Intel sometimes gets VERY arrogant, since they are the one's making the more popular processor. But Apple had to use an ARM chip and Intel was sleeping when they asked them for something they could use. Yeah, I'm sure Intel can catch up to Apple with ARM chip design, but so far, they haven't. In the mean time, Intel has been a bunch of cry babies and kind of silly in getting involved with Microsoft trying to push these Ultrabooks in that marketing campaign. Microsoft should have done it by themselves and Intel should have told Microsoft that they don't want to damage their relationship with other customers that don't make Windows boxes.

Intel needs to be more like Switzerland in that neutral zone. Otherwise, they'll piss off customers.

It's really the photolithography equipment that drives this. The big 3 stepper/scanner equipment makers are ASML(dutch), Canon and Nikon(jap).

 

[G51989]

Except that most laptops aren't touchscreen...so u can't play angry birds or fruit ninja...
Frankly, when traveling by bus or train etc, I don't see people trying to read books etc awkwardly with their laptops.
And then there are much more stuffs iPads are convenient with.

Angry birds is a game for fools

For the money? I do not understand why someone would buy an iPad.

Its slow, small number of Apps in a closed off and very expensive ecosystem, it runs very hot, and has questionable reliability at best. And questionable build quailty, not from the Same Apple I bought my Pismo and G5 from for sure.

For the same money, your looking at a mid range laptop or high end netbook, both of which are faster, and far more capable.

----------

I would say that Intel sometimes gets VERY arrogant, since they are the one's making the more popular processor.

They are allowed to be.

They make the BEST consumer Laptop/Desktop chips in the world, and if their future projected mobile offerings are what they are hyped up to be, they'll be making the best mobile chips in the world.

When you make the best product in the world, and Intel does as far as CPU's goes for sure. Your allowed to be arrogant.

 

[thasan]

Angry birds is a game for fools

For the money? I do not understand why someone would buy an iPad.

Its slow, small number of Apps in a closed off and very expensive ecosystem, it runs very hot, and has questionable reliability at best. And questionable build quailty, not from the Same Apple I bought my Pismo and G5 from for sure.

For the same money, your looking at a mid range laptop or high end netbook, both of which are faster, and far more capable.

----------



They are allowed to be.

They make the BEST consumer Laptop/Desktop chips in the world, and if their future projected mobile offerings are what they are hyped up to be, they'll be making the best mobile chips in the world.

When you make the best product in the world, and Intel does as far as CPU's goes for sure. Your allowed to be arrogant.

I love the mix of work and play...granted, i dont like angry birds but i like the other fools game... fruit ninja and its variants these aren't possible in laptop. I carry by 13 inch MBP when traveling for conferences etc. but I find using iPad more often to check emails and answering them in iPad as it lasts longer, is much lighter and can do what I need it for then. It's a matter of prefs.