Apple affirmed to return to Samsung for 14nm 'A9' chips for next iPhones, iPads

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  • Reply 21 of 34
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lkrupp View Post

     



    The problem, though, is the suspicion that Samsung Semiconductor is sliding Samsung Mobile proprietary data about Apple’s plans under the table. Samsung denies this but can they be trusted?


     

    The question is... "Does it matter?"

  • Reply 22 of 34
    formosaformosa Posts: 261member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TheOtherGeoff View Post

     

    You don't build custom chips for your clients very long if you're leaking your client information to one of their competitors, especially within your corporate umbrella.  The Group President of Samsung Semi is likely hammering that message  home.  They want everyone's business and they want to keep it.   Apple, through it's use of TSMC is basically telling Samsung, 'we have options'  and leverages that every contract on price and on 'material breach' penalties.


     

    I agree. This has been my experience with a company (not Samsung) that also has a semiconductor division for hire. Your name is mud (in the industry) if you're caught or even hinted at leaking any kind of proprietary client info. So I believe Apple trusts Samsung Semi to fabricate.

     

    Unfortunately, Samsung Semi's profits still feed the Samsung chaebel.

     

    Having said that, I wonder if Samsung Mobile (or anyone) can determine if the die layout of the A7 could have been easily recognizable as 64-bit. Maybe someone can compare the ARMv8 reference design die layout to the A7's and look for strong similarities. I just don't know.

  • Reply 23 of 34
    After reading this article and 23 comments, I decided to read the Re/Code article to hoping to read answers to lingering questions I have about the Samsung rumors.

    Unsurprisingly I did not read the answers. Oh well.

    One question I have is, has Samsung really solved its 14nm manufacturing process problems?

    No publication seems to be publishing an answer to this question.

    Why is TSMC's 16nm manufacturing process not being discussed?

    It seems like so many people want Apple to have Samsung as a supplier that they publish this... “Samsung LSI hasn’t directly confirmed Apple as its 14nm customer. But the company sounded confident about 14nm FinFET ramp in the second half of this year during its Q4 2014 earnings call,” said Strategy Analytics analyst Sravan Kundojjala.

    So, on something that the trustworthy Strategy Analytics publishes, it becomes gospel that Samsung will be manufacturing the A9 chip for Apple?

    Read what I pasted above. This was published last year as Samsung began to admit it's earnings would be lackluster for Q4/2014. Spreading a rumor that it has won an Apple manufacturing contract for the lucrative iPhone helps Samsung until it is proven Samsung lied. The lie will be disregarded because the A10 rumors will start the cycle all over again.

    Think about all of the A8 rumors. The A9 rumors sound similar to the A8 rumors. The A10 rumors are being prepared now.

    [B]Update[/B]

    Here are links to the Samsung win rumors dating back to October 1, 2014 when Samsung was admitting financial losses for Q3/2014. The rumors quieted down until financial losses for Q4/2014 were admitted. The rumors might quiet down for another month or so. We will all see IF Samsung is using its 14nm manufacturing process for itself with the Galaxy S6 which could be snnounced in Barcelona in approximately four weeks.

    http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2015/01/samsung-reportedly-to-gain-70-of-apples-a9-process-orders.html

    http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2014/12/tsmc-likely-to-retain-the-bulk-of-apples-chip-business-in-2015-due-to-globalfounderies-14nm-tooling-delays.html

    http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2014/11/did-apple-really-sign-a-deal-with-samsung-for-80-of-their-future-14nm-processors-for-2016.html

    http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2014/10/tsmc-and-arm-reveal-next-gen-64bit-16nm-processor-that-apple-is-likely-to-adopt-in-2015.html

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-expects-sales-boost-from-apple-chip-deal/
  • Reply 24 of 34
    arlorarlor Posts: 532member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lkrupp View Post

     



    The problem, though, is the suspicion that Samsung Semiconductor is sliding Samsung Mobile proprietary data about Apple’s plans under the table. Samsung denies this but can they be trusted?


     

    If that's true, and I don't think we've seen any definitive evidence, it doesn't seem to be helping Samsung compete.

  • Reply 25 of 34
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    melgross wrote: »
    What's interesting here is with this process, Apple has caught up to Intel.
    Well Samsung and TSMC have! Apparently Samsung is shipping low volume 16nm chips right now. A company focused on BitCoin mining is apparently already receiving shipments. I have to admit complete ignorance as to what BitCoin mining is but apparently it demands specialized hardware.
    Now, there will be no easy performance gains left for a few years, except for smaller ones from the improvement of this 14nm process. It will force Apple, and other SoC manufacturers to concentrate on improving the designs as much as can be done on the same process.
    Interestingly ARM apparently has done just that with their new 64 bit core announced earlier this week. They profiled a massive amount of code and optimized the processor right where it was needed.
    10nm will like y be at least another two years away, possibly longer, if the same delays that plagued 14nm happen again with 10.

    The move to 14 nm was extremely fast in reality. Apple has been on a new node almost every year since DIYing their processors. That is exceptional and not sustainable. Also there is lots of talk about 10nm requiring all new tooling (extreme UV) which won't be cheap.
  • Reply 26 of 34
    ksecksec Posts: 1,569member
    Quote:

     Unsurprisingly I did not read the answers. Oh well.



    One question I have is, has Samsung really solved its 14nm manufacturing process problems?



    No publication seems to be publishing an answer to this question.



    Why is TSMC's 16nm manufacturing process not being discussed?


     

    Samsung 14nm is doing well, at least it is ahead of TSMC. Samsung skipped mass production of 20nm and concentrated on 14nm ( which is basically 20nm + FinFET )

     

    Samsung's 14nm also performed better then TSMC 16nm, that is why TSMC came out with 16nm+, hoping to win back some market shares.

     

    However it is likely Apple will be using both TSMC and Samsung as foundry, as they are more iPhones then ever, unlike 20nm which has its time to matured quite a bit before mass producing Apple's SoC. 14/16nm are on a tight schedule for iPhone 6S. 

  • Reply 27 of 34
    tg88tg88 Posts: 4member

    I don't think so.I think Apple will have to pay quite the premium to get the volumes they need because everyone is flocking to Samsung for the 14nm process.

    Qualcomm,Nvidia ,AMD everyone wants a piece of it. 

    This will be a tough year for TSMC they may remain with only Mediatek's business.

  • Reply 28 of 34
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    Tell them everything. LIE THROUGH YOUR TEETH. Make the despicable wretches spend billions on competition to nonexistent products.

    No I practice the art of miss information, or load them down with so much information they can not tell what is real or not or better yet what is really important or not.

    Samsung is tricky, they come in and tell you that only want 10% of your business, they talk about needing to understand what you are doing in order to better serve you. They also demand to meet with the design teams, and will not provide samples unless you provide them details on the project you plan to use their parts for. If this does not work they try and find a local Manufactures rep who you might be doing other business with and make you work with them to use Samsung parts in hopes you let your guard down with the Rep and share information with them.

    Out all the suppliers I have ever dealt with, Samsung is the sneakiest of them all. There sale and FAE are just spies, especially if they are Korean and been recently assigned to the US. You know if Samsung is interested in what you are doing if all of a sudden your Samsung account team barely speak English.

    I do know at Apple conversations with suppliers are one way, supplier to Apple, Apple barely shares any information with its supplier it is on an need to know bases. Apple will not talk to Sales people they want to talk to the design team for the product especially if it is critical to what Apple is doing.
  • Reply 29 of 34
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    revenant wrote: »

    i agree with TheOtherGeoff, if as a manufacturing arm of a company you cannot keep your mouth shut, you are breaching contract. After the sapphire fiasco, i think we know apple's contracts are not for big mouthed companies. i live in Korea and have a few friends working high up in samsung mobile and samsung chemical- it is not very easy to get details out of them.

    The contract are only as good as if you can prove they leaked or shared information, easy if your stupid enough to use email. But company like Samsung will never put things in writing specially when they are sharing what others are doing.

    Just because your Samsung friends will not tell you things, only means you have nothing of important they want. Part of the reason Samsung sale people tell you what the competitor is doing is in hopes you will share with them what you are doing, tit for tat.

    Samsung has always been a double edge sword, you want and need to do business with them since many time they have the latest and greatest, however, on the other hand you may not want them to know what you are doing especially if you know they may share that with the competition.
  • Reply 30 of 34
    shompashompa Posts: 343member
    You cant take chip designs from TSMC and go to Sammy and manufacture them. You need to do a complete new tapeout to do that. No company in history have done that with the same chip. No Nvidia/AMD chip for example have been fabbed at 2 different foundries.
    Sure: I understand that these articles are click-bate, but its irritating for people who have minimal knowledge how chips are manufactures.

    Usually it takes about 2 years to design a chip. Even if Apple is super smart: The tapeout/testwafers/trialruns have to be done minimum 9 month before launch. So yes: Samsung or TSMC have already done testwafers of A9/A9X. If there are any errors on the chip, Apple have to do a respin and it takes about a month for a minor respinn.
    Volume production have to start 6-8 weeks before delivery of Apples next product.

    Anyway. Apple could design 2 different SoCs for 2 different foundries. For example A9 for Sammy and A9X for TSMC. Sammy already manufactures A5s today and A7S. Its only A8/X that TSMC manufacture.

    The hype for 14nm is also just hype. The days where smaller process means cheaper chips are over. People seems to miss that majority of chips manufactured today are still over 65nm. I dont know the price of 20nm wafers/16 nm wafers. But 32 was 5K and 28 was 7.5K. An educated guess is that 20nm is 10K = why AMD/Nvidia have not produced any graphics cars on it.

    Same thing with heat. Smaller chips = harder to lead away the heat. Just look at Intel and their abysmal track record. 32nm -- 22nm: 7% speed (and harder to overclock) 22nm --> 16nm 5% speed increase.

    For Apple its not about that. That the unique position Apple is in. Apple is today the only company that control its hardware/designs its own SoC and control the OS. Apple uses this by putting in anything the OS needs on hardware accelerators/DSPs. Like A5s voiceDSP for Siri, or the visual processor for the camera or the security enclave. Apple spends over 30% of the die area for Apple specific stuff. And we are talking 30% of 2 billion transistors.

    Smaller process just means more transistors for Apple to put on more fun integrated hardware.
    This is whats cool with Apple.

    This is why Apple will move to ARM on X86. Imagine the things they can do with custom hardware for laptops/PCs. Not only that ARM cost 1/10 of Intel, but Apple can implement Siri/TouchID/acceleration for example Photos.

    Instead of burning billions on dividends and making Steve cry when Apple lend 10billion to pay them: Buy a foundry: For example one of Intels empty 14nm fabs. Intel could need 10billion. Or why not from Sammmy? They have unused capacity.

    Guess that DrDree have to own a foundry for Tim finding it interesting....
  • Reply 31 of 34
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    shompa wrote: »
    You cant take chip designs from TSMC and go to Sammy and manufacture them. You need to do a complete new tapeout to do that. No company in history have done that with the same chip. No Nvidia/AMD chip for example have been fabbed at 2 different foundries.
    Sure: I understand that these articles are click-bate, but its irritating for people who have minimal knowledge how chips are manufactures.
    The only way that Apple can judge one foundry against another would be to build the same chip at both foundries. The chips would be as functional equivalent as the processes allow.

    Usually it takes about 2 years to design a chip. Even if Apple is super smart: The tapeout/testwafers/trialruns have to be done minimum 9 month before launch. So yes: Samsung or TSMC have already done testwafers of A9/A9X. If there are any errors on the chip, Apple have to do a respin and it takes about a month for a minor respinn.
    Volume production have to start 6-8 weeks before delivery of Apples next product.
    This only highlights that Apple has already received test samples from at least one foundry. 14/16nm chips are already being shipped to customers. So the idea that Samsung has already been selected as a partner for the next node isn't impossible.

    Anyway. Apple could design 2 different SoCs for 2 different foundries. For example A9 for Sammy and A9X for TSMC. Sammy already manufactures A5s today and A7S. Its only A8/X that TSMC manufacture.
    Apple is at a point right now that I really believe that they are building two identical designs at these different foundries. Their volumes are so huge that they have to have backup plans inplace.

    The hype for 14nm is also just hype. The days where smaller process means cheaper chips are over. People seems to miss that majority of chips manufactured today are still over 65nm. I dont know the price of 20nm wafers/16 nm wafers. But 32 was 5K and 28 was 7.5K. An educated guess is that 20nm is 10K = why AMD/Nvidia have not produced any graphics cars on it.
    All the chips people care about are sub 22nm.
    Same thing with heat. Smaller chips = harder to lead away the heat. Just look at Intel and their abysmal track record. 32nm -- 22nm: 7% speed (and harder to overclock) 22nm --> 16nm 5% speed increase.
    You mis the most important factor here, it isn't speed that is important but rather integration.
    For Apple its not about that. That the unique position Apple is in. Apple is today the only company that control its hardware/designs its own SoC and control the OS. Apple uses this by putting in anything the OS needs on hardware accelerators/DSPs. Like A5s voiceDSP for Siri, or the visual processor for the camera or the security enclave. Apple spends over 30% of the die area for Apple specific stuff. And we are talking 30% of 2 billion transistors.
    Exactly!
    Smaller process just means more transistors for Apple to put on more fun integrated hardware.
    This is whats cool with Apple.
    True; but why don't you value this for what AMD, Intel or Qualcomm produces.
    This is why Apple will move to ARM on X86. Imagine the things they can do with custom hardware for laptops/PCs. Not only that ARM cost 1/10 of Intel, but Apple can implement Siri/TouchID/acceleration for example Photos.
    It is certainly a long term play if Intel doesn't want to play ball with Apple. However Intel is playing ball, at least in the XEON space.
    Instead of burning billions on dividends and making Steve cry when Apple lend 10billion to pay them: Buy a foundry: For example one of Intels empty 14nm fabs. Intel could need 10billion. Or why not from Sammmy? They have unused capacity.
    Hey stockholders want that payoff. Besides they could have bought that foundry with one quarters profit. As for Sammy their custom chip business is doing far better than many think.
    Guess that DrDree have to own a foundry for Tim finding it interesting....
    If there was a huge advantage to the chip business IBM would have kept theirs.
  • Reply 32 of 34
    solipsismy wrote: »
    If you would have told me a few years ago that we'd be at 64-bit 14nm ARM chips in the iPhone in 2015 I wouldn't have thought it likely.

    It's refreshingly honest of you to admit your short-sightedness.
  • Reply 33 of 34
    How long before Apple overtake Samsung in annual revenue? They're catching up.
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