Apple to drop chip-baking partnership with Samsung?
TSMC said to forge Apple's next-gen 20nm, quad-core ARM chips
Apple is planning to shift production of its ARM-based microprocessors from Samsung to the Taiwanese chip-baking giant TSMC as early as next year, according to a report by the China Economic News Service (CENS).
The report, spotted by MacRumors, cites CitiGroup Global Markets analyst J.T. Hsu as saying that TSMC will be Apple's sole supplier of 20nm quad-core processors, with volume production to begin in the fourth quarter of 2013. He also noted that Apple began its 20nm chip-verfication process at TSMC in August of this year.
Hsu told CENS that the future quad-core chips were intended for Apple's "iPad, iTV and even Macbook," turning up the heat on two rumors that have been simmering for months: that Apple is planning a move into the television market, and that an ARM-based MacBook is in the works.
The television rumor has cooled in recent months, and the ARM-based MacBook rumor remains just that – a rumor – but Hsu's report of forthcoming quad-core Apple processors may provide one explanation as to why both of those projects have yet to see the light of day: Apple may be waiting until it can provide them with more oomph than it can squeeze from its current 32nm dual-core A6 processor, found in the iPhone 5, and its 45nm dual-core A5X, which powers the current iPad. Both are provided to Apple by Samsung.
When The Reg reported on Thursday that Apple had hired top Samsung microprocessor architect Jim Mergard to be one of Cupertino's growing chip-design team, we speculated that the growing bad blood between the Korean electronics giant and Cupertino might soon result in Apple taking its chip fabrication – currently done by Samsung – off to another foundry, possibly TSMC.
If Hsu is correct, it will turn out that we were right – although making that prediction was not exactly an act of perspicacious genius. ®
COMMENTS
Hey now, get your facts straight!
Right, I know you're trying to troll, but get it right! You claim "OSX is a bug-ridden mess and has so many bad decisions built into it that it's unrecognisable from the stable, secure BSD that it's built on." This is clearly wrong!
OSX was built atop the Mach kernel, not BSD's. It merely has a BSD-compatible POSIX layer and BSD subsytem on on top.
Now, write it out a hundred times. If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.
@AC 19:13
Down voted, not because of jealousy, but because aside from what you said about "Maps can be sorted out" the rest of your post is rubbish. You want updates without carrier interference, you get a Nexus. Fastest phone in the world? That'd be the S3.
As for maps, that just demonstrates everything that is wrong with the iPhone and it has nothing to do with the specs/capability of the device itself. It has everything to do with Apple having complete control over it while having no problem with shafting it's customers to spite it's competitors.
Re: Here a Troll, there a Troll, everywhere a Troll Troll
Whereas all Apple fans are the true friends of dorothy - the obvious "elephant in the room" reason prettiness matters above such trivia as dodgy antennas, comedy maps and - what's this latest one? - oh yes, purple photos.
Cut off nose to spite face
Note that Apple have reportedly already dumped Samsung as a supplier of batteries and displays. Combined with their dumping of Google Maps for a far-inferior alternative, it really looks to me like they are getting rid of suppliers whom they've fallen out with even when the consequences are negative for their own users. This is not a good choice. Is this what Jobs meant by his "thermonuclear" reaction to Android?
Re: Painting themselves into a corner
If iOS is a copy of Android because it has lifted some good ideas (the notification area being the most obvious) then Android is a copy of iOS for the same reason (eg, pinch to zoom). Neither is inherently in the wrong, and I think it's really only ever cited as an issue because Apple insists on being so litigious.
OS X isn't built on BSD. It also isn't bug ridden.
History says Windows 8 won't bury Apple. Windows 95 and 98 were lightyears ahead of System 7 in a lot of important areas — preemptive multitasking and memory protection sound like tedious tech wedge issues but substantially improve the user experience. Regardless, Apple survived.
The Linux distros don't make OS X old fashioned any more than the Apple Magic Track Pad or whatever it's called makes mice look old fashioned. Simply being different isn't the test.
Hackintoshes are a solution for, what, the most technical 5% of people?
Samsung and Apple phones and tablets are basically indistinguishable. The fact that developing software for them is common now and that tech types like yourself therefore ascribe greater significance to brands hasn't much changed how people pick their devices; nobody outside Internet forum types thinks of either as a great satan. Ironically it's the people that most complain about Apple users slavishly following the company that most strongly define themselves by a brand — it just happens that they're defining themselves in opposition. In any case they're a tiny subset of society. Based on the value proposition Apple probably deserves some segment of the market — say 10% or maybe even 15% — and will probably end up profitably maintaining that segment.
Apple has almost $100bn in cash reserves. That's the biggest cash hoard in corporate America, and more than twice that of Microsoft. Even if nobody buys another Apple product or service ever again, they're going nowhere for a very long time.
