Samsung and TSMC to Share Production of Apple's 14-nm A9 Chips in 2015

[MisakixMikasa]

"What if the A9 out-performs Intel equivalents, and Apple decides they want them in their Laptop and Desktop systems?"

That's a matter of when, not if. Apple likes the control the entire widget. They will.

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"The performance gap between ARM and x86 is huge."

CURRENTLY, that is true. You're assuming that will always be the case. For all we know, in 2 to 4 years, that gap might not exist.

You think Intel just gonna sit there and wait? No.... As i said, A7 is merely equivalent to my 06 AMD Athlon X2. In four years, yes, you can build a home computer with ARM processor, but that only gonna happen when software developer starts to jumping on ARM. Look at currently Windows RT app situation, it does not look like app developers want go all out for ARM platform.

 

[MisakixMikasa]

They could, but they choose not to. Apple wants to compete on better experience. A super-light, fan-less design with incredibly long battery life could completely redefine the MacBook Air category and all its clones.[/QUOTE}

It does not matter, Apple wants to keep their 50% profit margin. I don't care if my laptop is super light, fan-less or whatever that case maybe and I don't think many people would care as well. Battery life is important, but you get 14 hours battery with current MBA. You might get longer battery life with ARM processor, but by how much. I am not willing trade battery life with performance.

[QUOTE}A lower cost cpu is a necessity for all manufacturers to increase margins, no matter the retail price. And ARM will come to laptops first, not desktops. Which is the bigger half of the PC market anyway. Despite the x86 chips in the 13-inch MacBook Pro's being only dual-core ULVs, they still run hot when used at 100% and can eat up all the battery in just 2 hours. So all OSX Mavericks tries to do, is send these stupid CPUs to sleep. That is simply not feasible for a mobile device.

Yea, that is because x86 offers impressive performance. Heck, I can do photoshop with current MBA... Once again, I simply do not think people willing to spend dachshunds of dollars for a MBA just for web browsing and found out none of their applications are compatible.

Unless you somehow can get all developer on board with ARM, you are stuck with a machine that pretty much next to useless.

Neither of that is necessary. The PC market is already shrinking and tablets and smartphones are overtaking. The benefits of ARM architecture, less heat and lower power draw are equally important for all mobile devices tablets and laptops alike.
It is highly unlikely that the Intel monopoly will not be challenged by manufacturers, if there is any possibility.

Tablets are also consumer computers. And real high performance computers (like the Mac Pro) are a niche market. The new generation of gaming consoles are a higher performance consumer market and they have all chosen AMD chips because of the lower price point.

PC market is shrinking because most people in developed nation have at least one PC. Tablet is still something new. Tablet are not overtaking PC just because the impressive growth. Even with the wonderful ARM architecture, the performance difference with x86 processor is huge. You simply cannot do multi-tasking well with current ARM processor. There is a reason why all tablet OS limits you running one app at a time, they simply just does not offer the power most user needs.

The gaming consoles chosen AMD because AMD offers integrated solutions. AMD makes both x86 processor and graphic cards. Intel does processor well, but their integrated graphic card kind sucks. Nvidia does graphic card well, but Nvidia does not do x86 processor.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Sourcing from 2 different fabs with 2 different process technologies will be more design work, but I guess Apple thinks it's worth it from a reliability and volume perspective. If they have gone with IBM or GlobalFoundries there would have been less work since they are part of the Common Platform initiative and share process technology with Samsung.


14nm (TSMC calls it 16nm but they are similar targets) is a half node of 20nm. The big thing is introduction of FinFET 3D transistors at 16/14nm over 20nm. There will be some performance gain and power efficiencies, but not much die area improvement. The next major node is 10 nm. It'll only be a year between 20nm and 16/14nm but I believe we'll be stuck there for 2 years before 10 nm so things average out to Moore's Law over the longer term.

Yes, and the bulk of the development is in the hands of Global Foundries with its partners TSMC and Samsung.

 

[samcraig]

That they need each other. Come on...u forgot that samsung vs apple trial? the trial that led to somewhat divorced?

Say what? I think you're quite confused on the actual topic at hand.

 

[iEvolution]

Apple and Samsung are seriously a married couple who stay together for the kids (consumers) and financial benefits.

 

[brdeveloper]

The TSMC one will suffer from pipeline retention



(joking as usually non-Samsung parts suffer from slowness, image retention, etc)