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There's a 70 percent chance you have a Samsung chip, and a 30 percent chance you have a TSMC chip. There's a 100 percent chance you have the fastest phone on the market currently. Hope that helps.
I reckon they might have a Pentium II inside some of them; I heard it's been known to happen...


:p
 
Better not tell anyone here about how silicon parts are tested, binned, and features disabled at the silicon trace level and branded as another lesser IC because they didn't make the grade - shhh, there'll be an uproar, :D LMAO!

If people only knew the games they play.
you forgot clock speed "optimization"
What kills me is Apple charges $200 for processor upgrades which they might pay$10 for.
 
austin-powers-nerd-alert-gif
 
Not AT ALL true, in fact. Same arch, diff manufacturers, slightly diff instructions sometimes and subsets of features.

X86 is x86, no matter whether it's Cyrix, VIA, Intel or AMD.

If you read the post, the poster stated that they were AMD and Intel were two different architectures. That is not true.

BL.
 
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When anyone in this thread is able to demonstrate tangible evidence that they are a silicon architect, and/or work at a silicon fab, I'll take anything they say, seriously. It seems a lot of the complaints will likely come from people TOTALLY unaware of how electronics sourcing, supply and manufacturing work, and how supply/demand causes substitute drop-in replacement parts to be perfectly acceptable.

#placebo

10 years of VLSI semiconductor design and fabrication, primarily II-VI and III-V but also with some Group 4 experience. I have a master's degree from Stanford in Materials Science and took graduate level courses in semiconductor physics and semiconductor device fabrication. I also have a master's degree in Optical Physics from the University of Arizona.

The size of the die is irrelevant. The mask set (i.e. the schematic of the chip itself) is almost certainly identical between the two suppliers.

It is possible that one chip could run hotter than the other chip. It has to do with the lateral doping profile and transistor geometry and a bunch of other things which probably are different between the suppliers. Of course that's also true for chips from the same supplier. How much different, no one but Apple could know. It could be that they're so similar, the performance is identical. Without a direct statement from Apple, it will forever be idle speculation.
 
If anyone cares that much, learn to do BGA reflow, buy some solder paste, go and try to buy the "proper" part, and replace it yourself.
 
Wait, if you
I probably won't lose sleep at night if I don't know who makes the CPU inside my iPhone… But, if I'm going to pay upwards of $700 for a device, don't I have the right to know who the maker of the major components (like the CPU) is? …And, especially if it doesn't matter, it shouldn't have to be kept a secret until Chipworks reveals all!

I'm not asking for the blueprints for the iPhone so I can build my own—I just feel I should be able to know which company made something as important as the CPU inside my phone.

Whoa, if you paid "700 dollars" then you only got the 16 Gb model. Why???? You seriously should have got the 64. That also means you got the 6s, so you most likely got a Samsung chip. There, I deduced your chip so you can sleep.
 
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10 years of VLSI semiconductor design and fabrication, primarily II-VI and III-V but also with some Group 4 experience. I have a master's degree from Stanford in Materials Science and took graduate level courses in semiconductor physics and semiconductor device fabrication. I also have a master's degree in Optical Physics from the University of Arizona.

The size of the die is irrelevant. The mask set (i.e. the schematic of the chip itself) is almost certainly identical between the two suppliers.

It is possible that one chip could run hotter than the other chip. It has to do with the lateral doping profile and transistor geometry and a bunch of other things which probably are different between the suppliers. Of course that's also true for chips from the same supplier. How much different, no one but Apple could know. It could be that they're so similar, the performance is identical. Without a direct statement from Apple, it will forever be idle speculation.

#idle & #speculation; perfect hashtags for this thread.

^ Precisely my view, also. Wow, I could gladly sit you in a room for many days and ask you questions; I am an electronics engineer and silicon level fascinates me. As IF these people think they know the difference, is what's tickling my funny bone :D
 
I probably won't lose sleep at night if I don't know who makes the CPU inside my iPhone… But, if I'm going to pay upwards of $700 for a device, don't I have the right to know who the maker of the major components (like the CPU) is? …And, especially if it doesn't matter, it shouldn't have to be kept a secret until Chipworks reveals all!

I'm not asking for the blueprints for the iPhone so I can build my own—I just feel I should be able to know which company made something as important as the CPU inside my phone.

You have every right as you always have. Just rip your phone apart.

This does not matter one bit.
 
The average MR member wouldn't know the difference between these two:
 

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10 years of VLSI semiconductor design and fabrication, primarily II-VI and III-V but also with some Group 4 experience. I have a master's degree from Stanford in Materials Science and took graduate level courses in semiconductor physics and semiconductor device fabrication. I also have a master's degree in Optical Physics from the University of Arizona.

The size of the die is irrelevant. The mask set (i.e. the schematic of the chip itself) is almost certainly identical between the two suppliers.

It is possible that one chip could run hotter than the other chip. It has to do with the lateral doping profile and transistor geometry and a bunch of other things which probably are different between the suppliers. Of course that's also true for chips from the same supplier. How much different, no one but Apple could know. It could be that they're so similar, the performance is identical. Without a direct statement from Apple, it will forever be idle speculation.
So one being built on 16nm and another on 14nm technology won't yield any performance advantages? Either way the 14nm may have better power efficiency but in the end the who knows what they are doing to the chips to make them appear as "the same"
 
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10 years of VLSI semiconductor design and fabrication, primarily II-VI and III-V but also with some Group 4 experience. I have a master's degree from Stanford in Materials Science and took graduate level courses in semiconductor physics and semiconductor device fabrication. I also have a master's degree in Optical Physics from the University of Arizona.

The size of the die is irrelevant. The mask set (i.e. the schematic of the chip itself) is almost certainly identical between the two suppliers.

It is possible that one chip could run hotter than the other chip. It has to do with the lateral doping profile and transistor geometry and a bunch of other things which probably are different between the suppliers. Of course that's also true for chips from the same supplier. How much different, no one but Apple could know. It could be that they're so similar, the performance is identical. Without a direct statement from Apple, it will forever be idle speculation.
It's not the physical size, it's literally a different process, one is 14nm other is 16nm. Chance of one running hotter means the hotter one uses more battery. There is a difference but it's not huge... I'd say the samsung chip should be more sought after but having a TSMC is not a big deal. Still call it what it is, no need to pretend there isn't an actual difference because with a smaller die size there will be a difference even if not apparent.
 
Why would it affect performance ?

If its a smaller chip physical, that just shows components there were previously separate chips are now on-die..

The same happens in the desktop word too.

Result, faster performance.

Now, all this talk of chips is making me extremely hungry.
 
I'm asking, since I'm not a chip expert: Is this similar to the difference between and Intel chip and an AMD chip?

And don't I have the right to know which one is in my device?
No, they are basically the same chip still. They do the exact same thing, except one will get hotter and therefore consume more energy (the TSMC one most definitely). It's hard to say how significant the difference is, as you'd need the specifics of the process used in both chips. I don't think anyone here has those. You'd think that power consumption of a chip is proportional to it's resistance which is proportional to the length of the lanes. However, resistance increases as the lanes also get thinner. So it's not as simple as saying the TSMC chip uses 16/14 = 114.3% the energy of the Samsung chip, but the real number will definitely be smaller than that, so there's an upper bound (although a very, very rough one). Considering that the chip is responsible for like a third of the typical energy consumption (iirc), the difference in battery will be just a few percent at most. The difference will probably be impossible to measure, anyway. There are way too many factors influencing battery life that matter more. I wouldn't worry about it too much, even though I know that people will worry about this too much, unfortunately.
 
When anyone in this thread is able to demonstrate tangible evidence that they are a silicon architect, and/or work at a silicon fab, I'll take anything they say, seriously. It seems a lot of the complaints will likely come from people TOTALLY unaware of how electronics sourcing, supply and manufacturing work, and how supply/demand causes substitute drop-in replacement parts to be perfectly acceptable.

#placebo

It's extremely unlikely that anyone would even be able to prove there is a performance difference between the two as they're run at the same clock speed. There's only one situation where a difference should be noticed, and that would be on battery life if the phone was in a synthetic benchmark designed to stress the battery by maxing out the CPU and GPU. Other than benchmark developers, and those who use them for reviewing a product, everyone else will not notice a difference.
 
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It's not the physical size, it's literally a different process, one is 14nm other is 16nm. Chance of one running hotter means the hotter one uses more battery. There is a difference but it's not huge... I'd say the samsung chip should be more sought after but having a TSMC is not a big deal. Still call it what it is, no need to pretend there isn't an actual difference because with a smaller die size there will be a difference.

Erm, no offence, but I'll take his answer over yours. ;)
 
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Might have battery life implications. 16nm generates more heat, therefore uses more power. I speculate Apple use it for 6s+, since it has bigger batteries.

ifixit's 6s uses 14nm Samsung, 6s+ uses 16nm TSMC
 
Erm, no offence, but I'll take his answer over yours. ;)
None taken, I just think it's funny. At what point would it make a difference? 14nm? 18nm? 22nm? There will be a difference no matter how small or insignificant it might be in the real world. No need to pretend... Like I said though, it's not something worth getting worked up about but why bury your head in the sand?
 
Only for mega-geeks, who probably already own an Android phone because they can load roms on them.


Not only...My One Plus One phone offered me 64gigs over a year ago. I believe it also does 4k video? I don't use video and cant remember exactly if it does, without going to look but pretty sure it's there.

Shinyitis was almost winning me over to grabbing a new iphone but this news has made me rethink this plan I had for tomorrow and for sanity to sink back in.
Hasn't helped that my husbands iPhone 5, new exactly two years ago, 5 weeks ago, that is barely used with only a lifetime recorded 17 hours of talk time, had his battery keel over and have heart failure with the iOS 9 update has caused me to recall why i went One Plus one last year.

Still working on speeding up the battery and am partly there but it's devastated too many iPhone 5 users so far and I dont think that is a fact that can be overlooked.

Will be watching this closely over the next few days and may take the iPhone 5 into Apple but I am remembering the freedom I felt I gained when i walked away from the iPHone for the 1 plus 1 and the restrictions apple imposed upon it, that are not present on androids, its 64gig status, all for only $325......and it's one hell of a phone.
I REALLY wanted to love this iPhone and come back.......for the ease of synching is just not present with google when you own all apple products, that it is with apple, naturally. But reading all of these posts, I am going to hold off just a bit yet, at least :(
 
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