Samsung to Begin Work on Apple's 14-nm A9 Chips Before End of 2014

[BvizioN]

i saw comments about the finger print Samsung use on their phones and it seem that part of the reader is in the lower part of the screen so whe might see something like this first on Samsung products.

If you are referring to fingerprint scanner on Galaxy S5, that is not in the screen but on the home button and it's absolutely garbage compare to the touch ID. You got to swipe on it downwards and you have to do it on the right speed (not too fast or too slow) and you got to use both hands when you do it. The number of times it fails in me is quite high.

 

[samcraig]

I wonder how many of you all complaining about thinness, as if it's a negative, have ever had to carry around a flip phone or a treo. Those things were simply uncomfortable to carry around. The iPhone 1 changed all that for the better, and the trend is merely continuing.

Perhaps put a case on it, if it's so troubling.

The iPhone 1 was still hefty. And quite honestly, at launch you traded down in terms of a lot of functionality in exchange for a slick UI.

I had a treo. I never felt like it was a brick. Further - it had tremendous functionality and the battery life was great.

 

[BvizioN]

whats wrong with 5/5s thickness? jesus, do all you people have carny hands? i'm 6'5 with big mits and these little phones are driving me nuts

You can always use something like this, while we like them slimmer.

 

[Tankmaze]

A9 gonna be still dual core then, if they keep making those chips smaller.
but if the performance gains a lot without draining battery, i'm all for it.

 

[Crocodoc]

What does that mean? What enabling does Apple need to do?

Well enabling runtime code generation would be a good start. That's only the tip of the iceberg for increasing performance and saving your battery life.

Anyway, Apple is clearly developing technologies specifically for taking advantage of "this thing" - like Metal.

METAL pales in comparison to something like CUDA. They could be giving you more, but they aren't.

 

[Tzerlag]

I really hope they don't go any thinner. This nonsense of making something super thin is driving me crazy. How about working on those fat bezels?

Seems they are up against the headphone jack. And the camera. My sense is that thin won't get much thinner.

 

[CJM]

20nm is a new node for TSMC... For some reason I don't see Sammy managing to go for another new node in the space of one year. Even Intel has just started rolling out 14nm.

 

[Rogifan]

Re bezels: what happens with the Touch ID sensor? We've seen other companies implement a finger print scanner on the back of the phone and its a disaster.

 

[moxin]

Why not do a Microsoft and call it A10?

Lol

 

[mejsric]

50% more power efficient which means...AN EVEN THINNER PHONE.

No.... its not. since A9 is for iPhone 6s/6s+ (Same design)

Probably 50% more hours battery.

 

[CJM]

No.... its not. since A9 is for iPhone 6s/6s+ (Same design)

Probably 50% more hours battery.

Haha, yeah if only. Don't forget there will be clock speed increases which means less battery improvements.

 

[mazz0]

Is Apple going to enable the software to allow us to actually take advantage of this thing? No? OK

Yeah, the lack of 14nm software really irks me too

 

[Crocodoc]

Yeah, the lack of 14nm software really irks me too

I know right. USB sticks are so unfriendly, I want to be able to imbed gigabytes into the tip of my thumb.

 

[Bubba Satori]

I rather have a 16nm cpu that is manufactured not by samsung

Why?

 

[AppleMark]

I, for one, welcome our new north korean cpu overlords. Looking forward to credit card thin phones.

Seriously.....?

We all know that Samsung is not a North Korean Company.... don't we...?

Maybe you also think that PSY has been sent by Kim Jong-un, to infiltrate and subvert our popular culture?

[Tim cook announces to the audience] - "It's my pleasure to welcome the CEO of Everything In North Korea Corp, Kim Jong-Un to the stage to tell us the amount of people he had killed and tortured, to ensure we had enough A9 chip's in time for the new release.... Cool!"

 

[osofast240sx]

I rather have a 16nm cpu that is manufactured not by samsung

Why Samsung's chip side is a total seprrate company from Samsung mobile.

 

[diamond.g]

METAL pales in comparison to something like CUDA. They could be giving you more, but they aren't.

Eh, METAL is just allowing closer access to hardware resources. Much like AMD's Mantle. CUDA is like OpenCL, which Apple already implements in their iPhones. I am curious to see when Apple goes HSA with their Architecture.

 

[Crocodoc]

Seriously.....?

We all know that Samsung is not a North Korean Company.... don't we...?

Maybe you also think that PSY has been sent by Kim Jong-un, to infiltrate and subvert our popular culture?

Well the norwegians tried and failed. They may have called in for help.

 

[Rot'nApple]

50% more power efficient which means...AN EVEN THINNER PHONE.

And an even thicker camera rim protrusion!
/
/

 

[cue003]

I really hope they don't go any thinner. This nonsense of making something super thin is driving me crazy. How about working on those fat bezels?

I agree with this. Make it have more battery and reduce the size of the top and bottom bezels. But of course if they do make the top and bottom bezels a different size that throws off the symmetry they love so much. They bottom bezel shouldn't have a smaller home button (unless they incorporate the home button into the screen itself) so there isn't much room to reduce on the bottom of the phone. The top there could reduce my maybe as much as half that height I think. I know the underlying components need to be moved around under the bezel to accommodate the changes and may even have to be fully redesigned in size to fit a smaller top bezel.

 

[luckydcxx]

Well hopefully when the iPhone 7 drops they figure out the protruding camera, they def not going back 5/5s thick.

The biggest challenge is getting rid of the home button and implement touch id on the screen itself, i saw comments about the finger print Samsung use on their phones and it seem that part of the reader is in the lower part of the screen so whe might see something like this first on Samsung products.

i have to say that i hope the physical home button never goes away. i like actually pressing a button.

 

[osofast240sx]

No.... its not. since A9 is for iPhone 6s/6s+ (Same design)

Probably 50% more hours battery.

One step closer to have a solar panel behind the screen#

 

[PowerBook-G5]

I rather have a 16nm cpu that is manufactured not by samsung

The mark of a true Apple fanboi.

 

[Crocodoc]

Eh, METAL is just allowing closer access to hardware resources. Much like AMD's Mantle. CUDA is like OpenCL, which Apple already implements in their iPhones. I am curious to see when Apple goes HSA with their Architecture.

The METAL shader language isn't limited to just graphics processing. You can use it for GPGPU work, you just don't get the rest that comes with OpenCL or CUDA like the work management, assisted memory sharing, the prebuilt kernels for common tasks etc etc etc.

OpenCL is still a private library, and developers cannot get access to it on iOS. It also doesn't do as much as CUDA in general or as much as Metal in raw GPU control.

I know startups that are doing amazing things with CUDA on traditional computers and mobile devices. Market disrupting stuff. Sadly even simple things like signal processing, compression etc can be made so much faster on Android.The fact that Apple restricits its customers and developers so is a shame.

 

[Jsameds]

Tell me about it. The beauty of the ip6 being thin is totally marred by those god awful 2010 bezels. I'm a huge proponent of thin, but I think we've reached a point where we don't need thinner, we need smaller form factor versus screen size.

If you look back to 2010 - the iPhone 4 - you can see there is quite a considerable reduction in bezel between the 4 and the 6.