Report: Samsung To Build Apple's A9 Chips

[Guest]

Bloomberg reported that Apple will use Samsung's foundry after all to build its A9-series chips.

Report: Samsung To Build Apple's A9 Chips : Read more

 

[NightLight]

well, at least there will be one good thing in that phone.

 

[SpicPeso]

does anyone else think that picture looks like apple blowing samsung?

 

[wjdzm]

I heard Samsung announced that they completed their 10nm FinFET research and will be put to production with in a couple years.

 

[ta152h]

This has been pretty well known for months, especially when the CEO of TSMC said Samsung would outship them this year, but they would outship Samsung in FinFets next year.

Also, there had to be a reason for GloFo installing FinFet equipment this year, when AMD will not be using it until 2016. So, I'd expect them to be shipping some of those A9's, as Samsung will not have capacity to do so, with their own devices being made there too.

The reason is simple, Samsung had their version out sooner. TSMC is still not shipping 16FF+, and Apple didn't have time to wait.

This has nothing to do with one generation on one company, the other at another. It's just that Samsung's 14nm LPE is out, TSMC's was a few quarters later.

The A9X will be built at TSMC, however, which will go into the iPad.

 

[ericburnby]

well, at least there will be one good thing in that phone.

Correct. Designed and engineered by Apple, and run through Samsung photocopy fabs. Maybe one of these years Samsung will learn how to design a processor, instead of just using others designs.

 

[soldier44]

I stopped reading at 1920 x 1080....Where are the 30 inch + 4K curved IPS monitors Sammy?

 

[Wisecracker]

It will be interesting to see what GlobalFoundries has cooking up in Luther Forest.

 

[laststop311]

This has been pretty well known for months, especially when the CEO of TSMC said Samsung would outship them this year, but they would outship Samsung in FinFets next year.

Also, there had to be a reason for GloFo installing FinFet equipment this year, when AMD will not be using it until 2016. So, I'd expect them to be shipping some of those A9's, as Samsung will not have capacity to do so, with their own devices being made there too.

The reason is simple, Samsung had their version out sooner. TSMC is still not shipping 16FF+, and Apple didn't have time to wait.

This has nothing to do with one generation on one company, the other at another. It's just that Samsung's 14nm LPE is out, TSMC's was a few quarters later.

The A9X will be built at TSMC, however, which will go into the iPad.

tsmc will ship way more 16nm ff+ eventually because it is actually suitable for high powered use like in large discrete gpu's samsung process is only good for low powered chips as they rly have no business interests in the high powered semi conductor industry.

 

[dr6aj]

well, at least there will be one good thing in that phone.

Correct. Designed and engineered by Apple, and run through Samsung photocopy fabs. Maybe one of these years Samsung will learn how to design a processor, instead of just using others designs.

well, at least there will be one good thing in that phone.

Correct. Designed and engineered by Apple, and run through Samsung photocopy fabs. Maybe one of these years Samsung will learn how to design a processor, instead of just using others designs.

Obvious you are not familiar with IC manufacturing. No way does APPLE produce manufacturing masks or any 3d designs, they be lucky to master therm issues.

After APPLE broughtthe small ARM design corp, the firm's real designers left, so they were buying more PR claims and some ARM/power licensing deals vs manufacturing patients. The 14 is Samsung tech and their patents, not APPLE. Samsung spends the time fixing APPLEs cpu designs into functioning reality. Usually that is the most costly part of any production. Running a few VHDL programs does not produce a useable design.

 

[ericburnby]

Obvious you are not familiar with IC manufacturing. No way does APPLE produce manufacturing masks or any 3d designs, they be lucky to master therm issues.

After APPLE broughtthe small ARM design corp, the firm's real designers left, so they were buying more PR claims and some ARM/power licensing deals vs manufacturing patients. The 14 is Samsung tech and their patents, not APPLE. Samsung spends the time fixing APPLEs cpu designs into functioning reality. Usually that is the most costly part of any production. Running a few VHDL programs does not produce a useable design.

Clearly I know more than you after reading that pile of crap.

Apple is responsible for the MAJORITY of their processor design. All Samsung does is build the processor according to Apple's specs. Apple is just like AMD/ATI, Nvidia or numerous other fabless design companies.

Or are you going to now tell us that Nvidia GPU's (for example) have nothing to do with Nvidia technology/design and the real work is done by whatever fab makes it for them?

 

[AJ_Newman]

Apple will an an additional benefit from more efficient libraries if they implement ARM v8.1. It would be amazing if they release the A9 even before ARM shares their own big-core design that is v8.1 compatible.

AJ

 

[iam2thecrowe]

well, at least there will be one good thing in that phone.

crippled by the horrible OS

 

[Ninjawithagun]

Irony is a dish best served steaming hot!

 

[Ninjawithagun]

Damn SpicPeso, where is your mind this morning...virtual gutter? LMAO!

 

[dr6aj]

Obvious you are not familiar with IC manufacturing. No way does APPLE produce manufacturing masks or any 3d designs, they be lucky to master therm issues.

After APPLE broughtthe small ARM design corp, the firm's real designers left, so they were buying more PR claims and some ARM/power licensing deals vs manufacturing patients. The 14 is Samsung tech and their patents, not APPLE. Samsung spends the time fixing APPLEs cpu designs into functioning reality. Usually that is the most costly part of any production. Running a few VHDL programs does not produce a useable design.

Clearly I know more than you after reading that pile of crap.

Apple is responsible for the MAJORITY of their processor design. All Samsung does is build the processor according to Apple's specs. Apple is just like AMD/ATI, Nvidia or numerous other fabless design companies.

Or are you going to now tell us that Nvidia GPU's (for example) have nothing to do with Nvidia technology/design and the real work is done by whatever fab makes it for them?

you sound like someone familiar with manufacturing a circuit board which is simple vs designing an actual ic layouts, if APPLE actually had the tech patents on 12 thru 64 dies, on any fab process, they wouldn't be begging for corps to produce the their ics "designs". Putting a general design on paper for "ideals" is extremely simple, then next step is to run software simulation of design logic(time costly) but is still miles away from building an optical masks for manufacturing. Think of the simulation stage as step 1 in a 100 step development process, just because a simulation seems to work that does not mean the design can be used yet. The art of testing first prototypes are usually extremely difficult because of new "materials" to build circuit gates...... Plus most step 1 designers are not material engineers and EE guys. AND you to can rest assured that most of the subset of logical gates and sub-assemblies used to build the ic are owed by Samsung that builds the APPLE "designed" cpu. Again another small point, if you can jump between ic manufacturers easily, then you are usually using very common design elements and older designs because it is cheaper and it is easier to test production output-that can be a positive on overall cost. This is why GCUs use older large scale processes.

 

[aldaia]

This has been pretty well known for months, especially when the CEO of TSMC said Samsung would outship them this year, but they would outship Samsung in FinFets next year.

Also, there had to be a reason for GloFo installing FinFet equipment this year, when AMD will not be using it until 2016. So, I'd expect them to be shipping some of those A9's, as Samsung will not have capacity to do so, with their own devices being made there too.

The reason is simple, Samsung had their version out sooner. TSMC is still not shipping 16FF+, and Apple didn't have time to wait.

This has nothing to do with one generation on one company, the other at another. It's just that Samsung's 14nm LPE is out, TSMC's was a few quarters later.

The A9X will be built at TSMC, however, which will go into the iPad.

You are right in that it was known some months ago, but still toms stated just a few weeks ago that most A9 production would go to TSMC. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-a9-a9x-16nm-finfet,28748.html

Other sources however seem to point int you same direction. It seems that apple is actually splitting production and interleaving between fabs:
2015:
A9 14nm FinFET 75% samsung, 25% GF
A9X 16nm FinFET 100% TSMC
S1 (apple watch) 28 nm 100% samsung
2016:
A10 16nm FinFET++ 100% TSMC
A10X 10 nm FinFET 100% samsung
S2 (apple watch) 20 nm 100% TSM

Those sources also suggest that samsung may be producing 10nm chips by 2016 (probably to be sold in 2017 products).

 

[dorinne45]

can't believe, comparing iphone 6 et s6, maybe we'll get a good conclusion