More Reports of TSMC Beginning Trial Production of A6 Chip for 2012 Launch

[cdavi060]

I'm glad I'm holding out for the iphone 6. iPhone 5 adopters are going to get burned!

Really? Really? I've sold the previous phone on eBay since the 3GS for equal to or more than the annual $199 fee AT&T always offers customers upgrading to the newest iphone. No one is getting burned.

 

[vitzr]

I'm glad I'm holding out for the iphone 6. iPhone 5 adopters are going to get burned!

I do not think that iPhone 5 buyers will get burned per say. After all they will get what they paid for.

It's just that they will be buying the last of the "old tech" prior to Apples roll-out of the A6 chip specifically designed to work with the upcoming convergence of iOS & OS X. Once this new single OS is a part of all Apple portable devices, then and only then will we experience what Apples vision is.

Based on the huge transition that Apple is now squarely in the midst of, I do think that it would be a very smart decision to pass on the iPhone 5, and any other mobile device like iPads, and Laptops until the A6 / Single OS combination is released.

These are very pivotal and interesting times, and I for one welcome the change. I will reserve judgment as to whether it will work for me, until this radical paradigm shift is complete. I believe at the very least it will work well for the average Joe / Jane that want to buy iToys without having to learn anything new.

It will continue to increase Apple's revenue to unheard of proportions, and that is Apple's every dream come true.

 

[shompa]

Just remember that TSMC will have less then 1% 28nm wafer revenue Q4 this year. If this SoC is a 28nm SoC, it won't be released until next year.


19 april semiaccurate.com reported that Apple had sent tape outs to TSMC. An A5s SoC.
27 juni Semiaccurate.com reported that test wafers had come back to Apple from TSMC

If productions trials have started, it is an A5s.
Probably a 40nm dual core 1.5ghz cortex9 with PowerVR6. Fits exactly in line with competitors.

---------- Post added at 07:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:21 PM ----------

Please let it not be so! TSMC never gets their crap together in new node shrinks. Just look at the 40nm shrink. It took them 1.5 years to get it sorta right and at the same time harmed ATI GPU sales, due to low yields and constrained chip supplies.

What do you thunk would happen with Apple? Same thing, even worse constrained supplies.

Maybe.
But who should Apple use?

Global Foundries is at least 2 year late with 28nm.
Intel does not sell many wafers.
Samsung?

 

[shompa]

Apple likes to have multiple suppliers for their components. That way there is no single point of failure, and Apple can start bidding wars between suppliers. As in "Brand X can make these parts for 52.3 cents each in lots of 1 million. If you can't match that, we'll take our business elsewhere..." So the TSMC deal makes perfect sense.

There is, of course, the small matter of legal action against Samsung. Which may or may not affect Apple and Samsung's business relationship.

So what about Intel? Apple supposedly served notice to Intel, warning them that if they didn't reduce the power consumption of their mobile x86 SoCs that they'd go elsewhere. Intel's response was to spew $300 million into the Wintel community in an attempt to bribe them into copying the MacBook Air. Irrational, short-sighted, and reeking of desperation. Much better to spend the $300 actually improving their own product and/or process.

Then what will Apple do if Intel ignores their demands? Who could they go to? Well, there's always AMD. They are the second largest maker of x86-compatible chips and they bought ATI in 2006. And guess what. Their market cap is only $4.6 billion. Apple could either acquire a majority of their stock or buy them outright. Then Apple could use their engineering talent to massage the AMD chips for lower power consumption.

Apple acquiring AMD is a long shot. Especially considering that it is also possible that Apple could be planning to migrate some or all of their Mac lines to ARM-based chips. That would take years, considering how long it took for Adobe to migrate their professional suites from OS 9 to OS X and Cocoa. But I'm sure Apple could sell millions of MacBook Airs even if they don't run Adobe bloatware.

What would Apple do with AMD?
The X86 license is not transferable. Apple would have to negotiate with Intel to get an X86 license. My guess as that Apple would be denied.

Only AMDs graphic IPs is worth anything and Apple already has a large part in PowerVR.

One even bigger problem is that AMD can't supply enough processors to Apple. Apple is to big. Especially since Global foundries is a mess.

Apple really does not need X86 for anything then just high end. The problems with X86 is many. Price: Intels 80% markup and AMDs 40+% markup. ARM license ARM cores for 6 cent. That is the reason why a complete ARM SoC costs 25 dollar. Just the motherboard on X86 costs more (and draws much more power then ARM).
The X86 legacy features from 197x and the play version of 64bit extensions.

 

[Lesser Evets]

I do have logic on my side ...

OHZ NOEZ. Logic. Blind faith in your own form of logic. Unless you have the actual production info, your certainty is a cloud. There have been reports, rumors, on production of higher-res screens for the iPad for months now. Claiming certainty on the subject, unless you are directly in the production process, is just intellectual-geek-gambling.

Business logic would say Apple should upgrade whatever they can on the iPad and release an upgraded version this fall--to keep new competitors struggling in the market. Now you have to believe me... because I used logic.

 

[jacksonkeller]

Just remember that TSMC will have less then 1% 28nm wafer revenue Q4 this year. If this SoC is a 28nm SoC, it won't be released until next year.


19 april semiaccurate.com reported that Apple had sent tape outs to TSMC. An A5s SoC.
27 juni Semiaccurate.com reported that test wafers had come back to Apple from TSMC

If productions trials have started, it is an A5s.
Probably a 40nm dual core 1.5ghz cortex9 with PowerVR6. Fits exactly in line with competitors.

---------- Post added at 07:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:21 PM ----------



Maybe.
But who should Apple use?

Global Foundries is at least 2 year late with 28nm.
Intel does not sell many wafers.
Samsung?

There are not that many fabs out there that can produce 28nm in large numbers that Apple will require. In the first post the phrase "only recently had the production capacity available" caught my eye. Don't know if TSMC opened a new fab or lost a large volume customer. My guess TSMC wasn't the only one to run test lots for Apple, we(Maxim) do it all the time.

 

[chrmjenkins]

Just remember that TSMC will have less then 1% 28nm wafer revenue Q4 this year. If this SoC is a 28nm SoC, it won't be released until next year.


19 april semiaccurate.com reported that Apple had sent tape outs to TSMC. An A5s SoC.
27 juni Semiaccurate.com reported that test wafers had come back to Apple from TSMC

If productions trials have started, it is an A5s.
Probably a 40nm dual core 1.5ghz cortex9 with PowerVR6. Fits exactly in line with competitors.

?

Rogue series cores won't be ready then. Why would they overclock the CPU if they stayed on the same process node?

 

[SeaFox]

A bit off topic, but I just have to say, that is truly an awful logo. Every time there's an article about TSMC I cringe when I see it.

Maybe it's supposed to be representative of the number of good chips to defective ones they produce on the average wafer.

 

[Trudy]

Please let it not be so! TSMC never gets their crap together in new node shrinks. Just look at the 40nm shrink. It took them 1.5 years to get it sorta right and at the same time harmed ATI GPU sales, due to low yields and constrained chip supplies. What do you thunk would happen with Apple? Same thing, even worse constrained supplies.

The great thing is Apple is partially no longer dependent. Apple used to be dependent on Motorola, then Motorola/Freescale/IBM, now Intel for desktop CPUs. For mobiles Apple was dependent on Samsung. Now Apple has its own design using its own in-house talent, plus licensed architecture from the industry leader, and can shop it to any capable foundry in the world. The only fail point I can see is if ARM stops innovating, but all of Apple's competition also relies on ARM, so that wouldn't hurt Apple's competitiveness.

IIRC, Apple uses at least three suppliers for iPad screens. Wouldn't hurt to have a few concurrent suppliers for mobile SoC too.

 

[DaveN]

That's why it's best to wait for the iPhone (X + 1), because the iPhone X adopters always get burned.

I've heard the iPhone (X + 1) comes out (current year + 1) from whenever one wants to think about buying the next iPhone. Happy waiting!

x + 1 users can't hold a candle to us x + 2 owners! Until x + 2 comes out, I'm continuing to use my two cups and a string to talk to my neighbors. I even have a red colored cup and string that directly connects to the 911 center. You can't beat that for service!