TSMC Reportedly Lands Three-Year Deal for Apple's A8 Chip and Beyond

[fertilized-egg]

Eh, they use all the CPUs available is more accurate. The reason they use Qualcomm in NA is due to their whole package when the cellular radios are taken into account. Otherwise they'd be using Exynos.

With the current generation that might not be true. The new Exynos has been mired in a number of troubles and there has been some reports that said Samsung's mobile division themselves prefer the current Qualcomm chips over the new Exynos because of those troubles. Also it looks like TSMC has been well on their game to deliver solid yields so far.

I always wondered why GloFo has never come into the discussion. Do they just lack the capacity?

 

[hchung]

Move back? When were they ever?

Apple used to design northbridges and southbridges during the PPC era.
Pretty much everything except for the GPU, the CPU, and the DRAM.

----------

I always wondered why GloFo has never come into the discussion. Do they just lack the capacity?

Not sure, but I'd guess it might be that Apple wants 28nm. That kinda limited it down to TSMC or build-your-own-fab.

 

[fertilized-egg]

Not sure, but I'd guess it might be that Apple wants 28nm. That kinda limited it down to TSMC or build-your-own-fab.

I recall reading about partnership between ARM and GloFo, both with the 28nm and the 20nm processes but nothing really came out of it.

But maybe TSMC really is doing something right. Nobody seems to point this out but whether intentionally or not, Samsung mobile has been moving toward TSMC as well. The first Galaxy S had nothing but Samsung Hummingbird but later S2 and S3 added more Snapdragons manufacutured by TSMC. Reportedly the Qualcomm chips now account for the majority of the latest S4 units. On the downside, TSMC suffered a decline in its stock when Samsung's stocks took a dive on the reported decline of the S4 shipment.

 

[Wolfpup]

Ugh, Apple seriously needs a new name for their chips. Both AMD and even more confusingly ARM were here first, and it's getting more confusing. I wish others wouldn't play along, and would just refer to what the hardware IS rather than Apple's ridiculous overlapping name.

 

[chrmjenkins]

Apple used to design northbridges and southbridges during the PPC era.
Pretty much everything except for the GPU, the CPU, and the DRAM.

Which is precisely what I was asking about.

With the current generation that might not be true. The new Exynos has been mired in a number of troubles and there has been some reports that said Samsung's mobile division themselves prefer the current Qualcomm chips over the new Exynos because of those troubles. Also it looks like TSMC has been well on their game to deliver solid yields so far.

I always wondered why GloFo has never come into the discussion. Do they just lack the capacity?

GloFo is new to the mobile space (relatively) and probably isn't offering any other benefits than those in the alliance with them (samsung, UMC). TSMC has a process lead and there's also quite more dense. If FD-SOI takes off, GloFo is positioned to have some more action.

 

[Crzyrio]

running ML? are you serious?

That allows me to take my entire desktop everywhere i go in the palm of my hand and converts into a projector

 

[bigwig]

APPLE may have considered going down that road of building their own foundry, but perhaps came to the conclusion that it wasn't cost-effective.....

It's only what, a couple of billion dollars for your own fab? Apple can certainly afford it.

 

[dhstone]

From Texas to Taiwan?

So doesn't the change in suppliers mean the new chips will be made in Taiwan rather than at Samsung's plant in Texas. Sort of undermines Tim Cook's claim that Apple is looking to move more production to the U.S. Instead he seems to be shipping production offshore.

 

[ghstmars]

So doesn't the change in suppliers mean the new chips will be made in Taiwan rather than at Samsung's plant in Texas. Sort of undermines Tim Cook's claim that Apple is looking to move more production to the U.S. Instead he seems to be shipping production offshore.

If that rumored plant in upstate ny gets built then maybe not ...

http://appleinsider.com/articles/12...state-new-york-chip-factory-may-involve-apple

 

[Tech198]

....just like in the Toy Story movies...

 

[hchung]

Which is precisely what I was asking about.

Sorry, was mixing up threads I was reading and somehow thought you were asking about logic design.

I don't think they ever did GPU design, but they supposedly made contributions to the ARM 610 design.

 

[hchung]

I recall reading about partnership between ARM and GloFo, both with the 28nm and the 20nm processes but nothing really came out of it.

But maybe TSMC really is doing something right. Nobody seems to point this out but whether intentionally or not, Samsung mobile has been moving toward TSMC as well. The first Galaxy S had nothing but Samsung Hummingbird but later S2 and S3 added more Snapdragons manufacutured by TSMC. Reportedly the Qualcomm chips now account for the majority of the latest S4 units. On the downside, TSMC suffered a decline in its stock when Samsung's stocks took a dive on the reported decline of the S4 shipment.

I'd think that the move towards TSMC by Samsung isn't deliberate, but rather a side effect of Qualcomm's chips having the better cores.
Exynos uses the licensed ARM designs. Qualcomm's Krait is simply better.

I'd also guess that the Exynos 5 Octa doesn't have great yields given that it's both a switch to 28nm and a presumably larger die. Would need another chip to fill in the gap.

But yeah, I did find it funny that the Galaxy S3 Mini seems to only have 2 Samsung components: the screen and the NAND.

 

[Wolfpup]

Exynos uses the licensed ARM designs. Qualcomm's Krait is simply better.

"Better" than what? Scorpian or whatever seems to be an A8+. Krait seems to be an A9+. A15 stomps on Krait. Only thing Krait and Swift do is sort of plug in in between A9 and A15, which now presumably the A12 does as well.

 

[hchung]

"Better" than what? Scorpian or whatever seems to be an A8+. Krait seems to be an A9+. A15 stomps on Krait. Only thing Krait and Swift do is sort of plug in in between A9 and A15, which now presumably the A12 does as well.

I should have posted that in a different order.

The Exynos 5 Octa is using A15s, but the yields are probably limited.
Compared with the remaining Exynos options, Krait's simply better.
It's got better performance with roughly the same power consumption as the A9.

Finally, while A15 stomps on Krait for sheer computational performance, A15's got a significantly worse power consumption. I haven't seen real world numbers for an A15/A7 pairing, but I'd have a hard time seeing it work out well for any Android manufacturer given the wakelock and power management issues consumers have.

 

[chrmjenkins]

I should have posted that in a different order.

The Exynos 5 Octa is using A15s, but the yields are probably limited.
Compared with the remaining Exynos options, Krait's simply better.
It's got better performance with roughly the same power consumption as the A9.

Finally, while A15 stomps on Krait for sheer computational performance, A15's got a significantly worse power consumption. I haven't seen real world numbers for an A15/A7 pairing, but I'd have a hard time seeing it work out well for any Android manufacturer given the wakelock and power management issues consumers have.

Precisely. ARM designed the A15 to be in everything from smartphones to tablets and low power notebooks. With their 64 bit designs, it's even worse because they expect servers to be built around them. Krait and Swift are aimed pointedly at smartphones and have to be less general purpose. If the A15 was so great for what they needed, Apple would have used it.

 

[h4lp m3]

I cant wait to see what the next gen of tech will hold. Im keen to look back and laugh at how I only had 32gb of ram in my computer as it will be common place for a phone.

We currently have the means to put 256GB in a smartphone... The one thing that all smartphone manufacturers agree on: It would hurt their bottom line.

 

[Wolfpup]

We currently have the means to put 256GB in a smartphone... The one thing that all smartphone manufacturers agree on: It would hurt their bottom line.

Mmm...I don't know that we could put that in a SMALL smartphone lol. Not to mention we're years away from needing that kind of RAM even in a larger PC.

 

[h4lp m3]

Mmm...I don't know that we could put that in a SMALL smartphone lol. Not to mention we're years away from needing that kind of RAM even in a larger PC.

Really? Because I think 10 of these could EASILY fit into a smartphone?

I'm in the industry. I know these things. You're glib.

 

[chrmjenkins]

Really? Because I think 10 of these could EASILY fit into a smartphone?

Image

I'm in the industry. I know these things. You're glib.

Apple has always used a single NAND chip module for their iphones. Probably always will.

So, unless you can demonstrate we've hit greater density than 64GB in one of these modules, please stop talking. There's no more room to add more chips and there's certainly no space or interest in putting random SDHC cards inside the phone. These cards, by the way, are much lower speed than the onboard NAND shown in the picture in yellow. They are not equivalent.