Sorry, I call bullshit. I think it's extremely unreasonable to believe Apple would have stuck with the same screen size forever if Samsung did not exist, especially since EVERY other OEM also sells larger phones. It has nothing to do with competition. Samsung didn't make anything "possible", nor have they really contributed anything to the smartphone space, at least that Apple has incorporated into its own products. Expanding the iPhone lineup as it matured was inevitable. People were bitching about size way back since the iPhone 4, so if Apple was doing this as a reaction, we would have had larger phones years ago. No, Apple made this move now because the technology was at the level where it needed to be, and because they were ready to do so from a software, developer, and ecosystem point of view. It's extremely superficial, and lazy, to conclude that Apple did this as a reaction to anything Samsung has done, who has been selling larger phones than Apple since the iPhone 3G. Apple is sticking to its own roadmap, not that of anyone else.
Totally agree.Apple takes its time to get it done right!
Sorry, I call bullshit. I think it's extremely unreasonable to believe Apple would have stuck with the same screen size forever if Samsung did not exist, especially since EVERY other OEM also sells larger phones. It has nothing to do with competition. Samsung didn't make anything "possible", nor have they really contributed anything to the smartphone space, at least that Apple has incorporated into its own products. Expanding the iPhone lineup as it matured was inevitable. People were bitching about size way back since the iPhone 4, so if Apple was doing this as a reaction, we would have had larger phones years ago. No, Apple made this move now because the technology was at the level where it needed to be, and because they were ready to do so from a software, developer, and ecosystem point of view. It's extremely superficial, and lazy, to conclude that Apple did this as a reaction to anything Samsung has done, who has been selling larger phones than Apple since the iPhone 3G. Apple is sticking to its own roadmap, not that of anyone else.
I think Samsung showed Apple that the 5" and above market was viable. If Samsung's 4.7" phone sold like hotcakes but its Note series failed miserably then I doubt if Apple would have bothered entering the larger than large space.
Baloney, another bogus story from the WS shysters.
Unless there is an actualteardown with markings indicatin a Samsung manufactured chip, no one should believe this. The whole point is to keep Samsung relevant. I believe at this point apple has severed their ties.
If by ‘skills’ you mean ‘established infrastructure, manpower, and access to raw materials’, I’ll agree with you. If you mean anything else, what are you smoking?
What TS said. It's not so much the skills as the scale. Chip fabs are so ungodly expensive nowadays that it doesn't make sense for Apple to own one to produce chips just for itself. As big a company as it is, its consumption of silicon is only a fraction of what the big chip foundries can produce. Leave that business to the specialists who have the scale to pay for the infrastructure. If Apple tried to make its own chips without also becoming a foundry-for-hire -- which would be a totally new line of business for the company (and one that doesn't have very high margins) -- Apple's products would get more expensive or Apple's margins would fall.
Almost every major designer of chips does. An exception might be intel, but nvidia and qualcom certainly do- qualcom even uses Samsung and they are probably even worse enemies than Apple. Its a shell game industry and everyone averts risk because supply issues do happen. A good number of manufacturers also offload capacity. I think Samsung was at one point around 30-40% offloaded. That way even if Apple were to cancel its contract, Samsung would just move its offloaded stuff in house and maintain 100% capacity-its the smalltimers that would take the brunt of the impact. None of the other companies have armies of 'enthusiastic' fans, so they just do it with less drama than Apple.
Almost every major designer of chips does. An exception might be intel, but nvidia and qualcom certainly do- qualcom even uses Samsung and they are probably even worse enemies than Apple. Its a shell game industry and everyone averts risk because supply issues do happen. A good number of manufacturers also offload capacity. I think Samsung was at one point around 30-40% offloaded. That way even if Apple were to cancel its contract, Samsung would just move its offloaded stuff in house and maintain 100% capacity-its the smalltimers that would take the brunt of the impact. None of the other companies have armies of 'enthusiastic' fans, so they just do it with less drama than Apple.
I think you're way off. Nvidia has been totally dependent on TSMC. AMD is totally dependent on TSMC for GPUs and totally dependent on GloFo for CPUs. Qualcomm has only recently started using Samsung, and that's mostly because they were forced to do so by Apple when Apple bought up a lot of TSMC's capacity.
Simultaneously launching a new CPU design at scale with two different foundries that use different processes is extremely rare. I'd love to hear of a specific example of anybody else doing this.
Are Apple familiar with how to actually manufacture CPUs? I know they've got a lot of chip design people, but do they have expert lithographic engineers too?
Do YOU understand and appreciate that it isn't necessary for a company to mine the ore in order to use it in a product?
Fascinating… I wonder if any other chip designer uses two foundries at the same time for the same chip. I kind of doubt it given the large investment of time and money to tailor a design to a particular foundry's process.
This means that Apple has the foundries competing for its business in a way that no other chip designer does. Everyone else has to deal with a certain amount of lock in with their foundry partner.
Actually all company's want dual sources for the IC's. back in the day, AMD Received the intel license to manufacture x86 chips due to the second source requirements of IBM...
thus Apple might be using Samsung as a second source (although TSMC is the chip foundry that chipworks says that is making the A8)...
but if you have a large enough foundry, it might not matter...
Comments
Pretty obvious he meant the former, so why the outrage of the unknown latter?
Because he has to be outraged at something in order to smack talk somebody.
Totally agree.Apple takes its time to get it done right!
Sorry, I call bullshit. I think it's extremely unreasonable to believe Apple would have stuck with the same screen size forever if Samsung did not exist, especially since EVERY other OEM also sells larger phones. It has nothing to do with competition. Samsung didn't make anything "possible", nor have they really contributed anything to the smartphone space, at least that Apple has incorporated into its own products. Expanding the iPhone lineup as it matured was inevitable. People were bitching about size way back since the iPhone 4, so if Apple was doing this as a reaction, we would have had larger phones years ago. No, Apple made this move now because the technology was at the level where it needed to be, and because they were ready to do so from a software, developer, and ecosystem point of view. It's extremely superficial, and lazy, to conclude that Apple did this as a reaction to anything Samsung has done, who has been selling larger phones than Apple since the iPhone 3G. Apple is sticking to its own roadmap, not that of anyone else.
I think Samsung showed Apple that the 5" and above market was viable. If Samsung's 4.7" phone sold like hotcakes but its Note series failed miserably then I doubt if Apple would have bothered entering the larger than large space.
Unless there is an actualteardown with markings indicatin a Samsung manufactured chip, no one should believe this. The whole point is to keep Samsung relevant. I believe at this point apple has severed their ties.
If by ‘skills’ you mean ‘established infrastructure, manpower, and access to raw materials’, I’ll agree with you. If you mean anything else, what are you smoking?
What TS said. It's not so much the skills as the scale. Chip fabs are so ungodly expensive nowadays that it doesn't make sense for Apple to own one to produce chips just for itself. As big a company as it is, its consumption of silicon is only a fraction of what the big chip foundries can produce. Leave that business to the specialists who have the scale to pay for the infrastructure. If Apple tried to make its own chips without also becoming a foundry-for-hire -- which would be a totally new line of business for the company (and one that doesn't have very high margins) -- Apple's products would get more expensive or Apple's margins would fall.
Where is this news coming from? Samsung has little 20nm production. Heck They dont even call their 20nm volume production.
40% of Apple A8 is a huge deal! Or has Samsung decide to leave 20nm just for Apple?
I think you're way off. Nvidia has been totally dependent on TSMC. AMD is totally dependent on TSMC for GPUs and totally dependent on GloFo for CPUs. Qualcomm has only recently started using Samsung, and that's mostly because they were forced to do so by Apple when Apple bought up a lot of TSMC's capacity.
Simultaneously launching a new CPU design at scale with two different foundries that use different processes is extremely rare. I'd love to hear of a specific example of anybody else doing this.
Do YOU understand and appreciate that it isn't necessary for a company to mine the ore in order to use it in a product?
Actually all company's want dual sources for the IC's. back in the day, AMD Received the intel license to manufacture x86 chips due to the second source requirements of IBM...
thus Apple might be using Samsung as a second source (although TSMC is the chip foundry that chipworks says that is making the A8)...
but if you have a large enough foundry, it might not matter...