Published in PC Hardware

Samsung loses A11 deal with Apple

by on19 July 2016


TSMC sells its soul for A11 work

The dark satanic  rumor mill has manufactured a hell on earth yarn that the fruity cargo cult Apple has dumped Samsung as the prefered maker of its A11 chip.

According to a report from China’s Economic Daily News, TSMC has scored all of Apple’s A11 chip orders.

TSMC will build the A11 chipset on the 10nm FinFET process for the iPhone that will be released next year.

The reason for the surprise move is believed to be the so-called "chipgate" scandal where Jobs' Mob ran both Samsung and TSMC A9 flavors in its iPhone 6 and 6S. Samsung's chips ran a bit hotter and used more battery but also were faster than the TSMC chips.

But the fact that Samsung has lost the contract for this reason is somewhat strange as Chipgate was the A9 and this is the A11. The processing system is different.The A9 used Samsung's 14nm process - this would have been 10nm. It could be that Apple is just not taking any chances, or that TSMC offered it a cheaper price. Apple has been leaning on suppliers to reduce their costs lately as it wants to increase margins as the actual numbers of phones falls.

TSMC has already begun completing the final design for A11, and the company might start small volume production as soon as Q3, 2017. TSMC is already the exclusive supplier of the A10 chipset that will be used in the upcoming Apple iPhone 7.

Apart from Apple, TSMC is expected to make 10nm chipsets for Xilinx, MediaTek, and HiSilicon. TSMC co-CEO Mark Lui said, “our first 10nm customer product has been produced with satisfactory functional yield. So far, three customer products have been taped out to us,” at the company’s investors meeting.

Samsung is expected to manufacture 10nm-based Snapdragon 830 chips for Qualcomm so it will make money away from the iOS system, but we doubt it will be happy with Apple.

Last modified on 19 July 2016
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