How TSMC Won Back Exclusivity With Apple for the A10 Chip in iPhone 7

Man TSMC really need to update that logo. Straight outta the corporate 80's!

 

So it uses 'middle-out' for better performance? Nice. Would love to see the Weissman Score.

 

Samsung sealed a deal to be the only manufacturer of Qualcomm snapdragon processors and is making there next gen snapdragon 830 monster along with the next generation exynos CPUs and has 10nm tapped out

 

Apple moving away from them is still a fairly significant chuck of business they are losing.

 

Qualcomm won't sell nearly as many 820/830 as Apple would buy of A10's. Most Android phones are low-end and use cheap SoC's. Even Qualcomm stated in their recent earnings report that the ASP for devices using their processors is dropping to around $200. These would use processors from the 600, 400 and 200 Series from Qualcomm. Not the 800 Series.

 

how do you know it's not because Samsung needed it's own fabs to make there own chips and to manufacture Qualcomm chips? you do know all the galaxy s7s and s7 edges in the USA use a snapdragon 820 built by Samsung right? they also needed there fabs for max capacity of there exynos mongoose soc in the rest of there line up.

Samsung made an awesome deal with Qualcomm and got basically a free chip to use in the gs7 in the USA while.have you seen the last sales report on Samsung with there gs7 flagship phones? maybe just maybe Samsung couldn't even meet the demand they needed for there own chips along Qualcomms.

the gen 2 14nm fab that is up and running now is also alot better then tsmc 16nm

 

This is what I think the next big upgrade to Apple processors will be. Apple might even start to design their own GPU cores and license IP from Imagination, much like they do with their processor cores. With complete control over both they could really up the performance.

 

Loving all the TSMC/Intel good news lately, both stocks are near their highs and if all these rumours materialize we might see another bump to both stocks.

 

Apparently it's not. If it was better, then Apple would be using Samsung for their next round of A10 processors.

 

Apple's A10 processor orders are likely larger than any other single mobile processor on the market. Heck the A10 will probably be in more devices than any other newly released processor across all phone manufactures. It would be silly for Samsung to turn away Apple's business.

The gen 2 14nm fab that is running now might be better than the last ssmc 16nm but doubt it will be much better then the gen2 16nm lol. This entire article is based on why Apple chose TSMC because it was better. TSMC's 16nm fab was better then Samsung's 14nm, you admit it your self. What makes you think only Samsung made improvements to their process in the last year?

 

I tried to visualize the solder bumps because I couldn't figure out how the CPU would be attached to the PCB if they were eliminated. As as mentioned in the OP, it sounded like the connection method was NOT going to be with solder bumps. After looking at your visualization, it seem that the connection to the PCB will still be via solder bumps, and the major change here is the connection between the different components that comprises the actual chip.

1) What is the material used for connection of the various chip components? Is it wire?

2) If my interpretation is correct, which it may not be, the original article should be updated to reflect that it is not connection to the PCB that has changed. Additionally, if it is wire that connects the components of the chip, that needs to be updated too.

 

um Samsung tapped out 10nm snapdragon 830 and mongoose 2 is being built in 10nm to complete with the a10 next year. Samsung's fabs are at full capacity right now to keep demand up for there own phones.there is no way Samsung could sign a contract with Apple considering how Strick apple is with its guide lines on massive bulk orders.

plain and simple Samsung could not meet apples demands along with feeding there own demand let's not forget the flip side of this story as Qualcomm anouced it will only use Samsung as it's fab and ditched tsmc because of the horrible relationship they had with the burning hot snapdragon 810 tsmc built.

 

Sorry, I call BS unless you can provide a source that says Samsung fabs are running at full capacity.

And it's funny Apple never had issues with TSMC processors using the same process as the 810. Perhaps Qualcomm engineers just aren't as good as Apples.

 

the 810 was not built on 16nm and Samsung used it's gen 2 fabs for there own exynos chips in the gs6 last year and gave apple to older process as they were working on the a9 before gen 2 was tapped out and could not re fab in time.

also just to let u know the 810 was a pure reference design and used the stock arm cores and were the same exact cores Samsung used in its 14nm fab.one chip ran cold while the other ran hot and both used same stock arm cores

and yes Samsung is at max capacity and is the reason they broke ground 7 months ago dropping 14 billion to start making another manufacturing plant.

why would they waste 14 billion on another 14nm factory if they had room to make more I'm the fabs they already have

 

fully agree if its thinner it must be better.

 

Believe me, he would have!

 

While Samsung turns their back against the Americans and gives the inferior Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 maybe for LTE bands while the international market gets the superior Exynos on their flagships. Weird how they messed up last year for the A9 only to produce the better SoC in the Exynos 8890 over Qualcomm's more power hungry Snapdragon 820 this year. Snapdragon 810 was a big mistake by Qualcomm last year too.

 

Put down the Koolaid. If you believe just applying 91 watts to an A10 is going to 'magically' produce performance equal to a i7-6700k you're sadly mistaken. ARM is tailored for max performance at low watts while Intel's chips are for pure performance. There's a reason why Intel has been having a hard time getting their chips to perform really well at low wattages. Apple would have the same problem trying to scale their low power designs up to high wattage performance.

 

Bring on the A10. It's going to be powerful for years to come. Advancement these days.

 

That's cool new tech it'd be better on 10nm though. Next years mobile devises are going to be awesome

 

Got any data to back that up? If you're talking about Samsung's 14LPE (early) being first gen and 14LPP (production) being second gen, I believe the A9 was already on the 14LPP process, and real world showed that was slightly inferior in performance to chips manufactured on TSMC N16ff+ (which was *their* 2nd gen of 16nm)

 

Not fair that we have to wait 13 months for the next Apple phone. Can we sue anyone?

 

The truth is, A-series chips are good enough already. If you own an A8/A9 device, there is little reason to upgrade.

 

I disagree. A better chip could mean better battery life for iPhone and better performance for iPad. A9x is still a bit inferior to core m brodwell according to anandtech, so IMHO improvement is needed for the iPad to level up (or for use in mac... I wonder what can be done with a 4 core A10x)

 

Wouldn't that be highly distracting when making a call on the next iPhone?