Development costs 'prohibitively high' for 7nm chips for everybody but Apple and TSMC

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 88
    tmaytmay Posts: 6,311member
    avon b7 said:
    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Cores and SoCs. Two different things. SoCs and phones. Two different things.

    Vapourware? The Kirin 980 was sitting there and running at IFA 2018. It is just waiting for the phone to launch (October 16th).
    Huawei only has a small volume of Kirin 980 samples until TMSC has met its contractual obligations to Apple. Neither you nor I know if or when Kirin 980 production has started or will start.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 22 of 88
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,623member
    Soli said:
    avon b7 said:
    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Cores and SoCs. Two different things. SoCs and phones. Two different things.

    Vapourware? The Kirin 980 was sitting there and running at IFA 2018. It is just waiting for the phone to launch (October 16th).
    Building a prototype ≠ mass production. Until you can go into a store and by a device with that processor with the stated lithography then it's just vapourware because any claims about shipping a product can evaporate at any time. If you need some examples of how a working prototype or marketing piece is still vapourware just google failed Kickstarter products.

    And while you probably think there's a bias against companies that aren't Apple on this forum keep in mind that this also applies to Apple. It's applies to the current state of no AirPower and no AirPods case with inductive charging that was suppose to ship 3 seasons ago as well as Group FaceTime—which I believe was demoed—being removed from Mojave and iOS 12.
    Yes, but even you will have to admit that for a 2018 launch of this calibre, the Kirin 980 had to be in mass production for a while now so calling it vapourware is plain wrong.

    Add to that that a Mate 20 was actually spotted in the wild at IFA, LOL.

    https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_mate_20_spotted_in_the_wild_at_the_ifa_show_floor-news-33055.php

    Btw, excellent link on GPU Turbo.
  • Reply 23 of 88
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,623member
    tmay said:
    avon b7 said:
    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Cores and SoCs. Two different things. SoCs and phones. Two different things.

    Vapourware? The Kirin 980 was sitting there and running at IFA 2018. It is just waiting for the phone to launch (October 16th).
    Huawei only has a small volume of Kirin 980 samples until TMSC has met its contractual obligations to Apple. Neither you nor I know if or when Kirin 980 production has started or will start.
    How on earth can you know that?
  • Reply 24 of 88
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    avon b7 said:
    Soli said:
    avon b7 said:
    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Cores and SoCs. Two different things. SoCs and phones. Two different things.

    Vapourware? The Kirin 980 was sitting there and running at IFA 2018. It is just waiting for the phone to launch (October 16th).
    Building a prototype ≠ mass production. Until you can go into a store and by a device with that processor with the stated lithography then it's just vapourware because any claims about shipping a product can evaporate at any time. If you need some examples of how a working prototype or marketing piece is still vapourware just google failed Kickstarter products.

    And while you probably think there's a bias against companies that aren't Apple on this forum keep in mind that this also applies to Apple. It's applies to the current state of no AirPower and no AirPods case with inductive charging that was suppose to ship 3 seasons ago as well as Group FaceTime—which I believe was demoed—being removed from Mojave and iOS 12.
    Yes, but even you will have to admit that for a 2018 launch of this calibre, the Kirin 980 had to be in mass production for a while now so calling it vapourware is plain wrong.

    Add to that that a Mate 20 was actually spotted in the wild at IFA, LOL.

    https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_mate_20_spotted_in_the_wild_at_the_ifa_show_floor-news-33055.php

    Btw, excellent link on GPU Turbo.
    So far they haven't launched shit but you're already claiming victory. Again, I saw a demo of Group FaceTime for Mojave and iOS 12 that isn't happening and I saw demos of AirPower and an inductive AirPods case a year ago. Until it fucking happens don't say Mission Accomplished.


    edited September 2018 StrangeDayswatto_cobra
  • Reply 25 of 88
    tmaytmay Posts: 6,311member
    avon b7 said:
    tmay said:
    avon b7 said:
    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Cores and SoCs. Two different things. SoCs and phones. Two different things.

    Vapourware? The Kirin 980 was sitting there and running at IFA 2018. It is just waiting for the phone to launch (October 16th).
    Huawei only has a small volume of Kirin 980 samples until TMSC has met its contractual obligations to Apple. Neither you nor I know if or when Kirin 980 production has started or will start.
    How on earth can you know that?
    Uhm, because Apple spends the most money, by far, and has one of the longest running exclusive relationships at TMSC, and the fact that Apple has volume production of the iPhone in process, with deliveries beginning in just a couple of weeks.

    If this wasn't the case, why would Huawei have waited to release the new phones in mid October? They could have moved heaven and earth to have these phones ready before Apple, but only if they had processors in volume before Apple does. It wouldn't even need to be a big volume, just a few millions shipped to a single market.

    I gave you a scenario where Apple ships 85 m iPhones this quarter, which will work out to about 60 million of the three new models. That will drive renege over $100B for the quarter.

    EDIT;

    I would also note that TMSC makes, unless I am in error, all of the other SoC's that Apple uses for all of the older model iPhones, for the Watch, AppleTV, AirPod's, et al, although not all of them are or need to be, at the newest node.
    edited September 2018 muthuk_vanalingamwatto_cobra
  • Reply 26 of 88
    tmay said:

    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Huawei is saddled with an inferior GPU design in the Mali, and has decided to go with a second NPU on the 980 as that is about the only tech that they can really leverage. 

    Samsung will be out with it's first 7nm Exynos, and Qualcomm with the 7nm SD 855, early in 2019, both of which will find their way into the S10, and I expect both to be technically superior to the Kirin 980. After that, all of the flagship Android OS devices will be pretty much at parity through the next 7nm node, and the Apple will likely get the lead production at 5 nm, and I'll bet that they will leverage whatever die they can afford.


    To me, it looks like Huawei's SoC technology is about 1 year behind Qualcomm's, who in turn is 1 year behind Apple's in terms of overall performance (CPU, GPU, ISP, Modem etc etc). And that gap between Apple and Qualcomm will only widen in future, while Huawei is slowly and steadily catching up with Qualcomm.


    Kirin 980 does NOT support 4K video recording at 60fps (even with 7nm SoC), while Apple's and Qualcomm's SoCs supported this feature in 2017 and 2018 respectively with 10nm SoCs. Huawei phone buyers will have to wait until late 2019 to buy a new phone to get this feature. While Huawei has made good progress in SoCs in the last 3-4 years, they are still behind their Android competitors (and forget about catching up to Apple ever).

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 27 of 88
    Soli said:
    avon b7 said:
    Soli said:
    avon b7 said:
    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Cores and SoCs. Two different things. SoCs and phones. Two different things.

    Vapourware? The Kirin 980 was sitting there and running at IFA 2018. It is just waiting for the phone to launch (October 16th).
    Building a prototype ≠ mass production. Until you can go into a store and by a device with that processor with the stated lithography then it's just vapourware because any claims about shipping a product can evaporate at any time. If you need some examples of how a working prototype or marketing piece is still vapourware just google failed Kickstarter products.

    And while you probably think there's a bias against companies that aren't Apple on this forum keep in mind that this also applies to Apple. It's applies to the current state of no AirPower and no AirPods case with inductive charging that was suppose to ship 3 seasons ago as well as Group FaceTime—which I believe was demoed—being removed from Mojave and iOS 12.
    Yes, but even you will have to admit that for a 2018 launch of this calibre, the Kirin 980 had to be in mass production for a while now so calling it vapourware is plain wrong.

    Add to that that a Mate 20 was actually spotted in the wild at IFA, LOL.

    https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_mate_20_spotted_in_the_wild_at_the_ifa_show_floor-news-33055.php

    Btw, excellent link on GPU Turbo.
    So far they haven't launched shit but you're already claiming victory. Again, I saw a demo of Group FaceTime for Mojave and iOS 12 that isn't happening and I saw demos of AirPower and an inductive AirPods case a year ago. Until it fucking happens don't say Mission Accomplished.


    At times, you get stuck at choice of words over the message being conveyed. This is one such example of that. For all practical purposes, we all know that Apple is going to launch 3 new iPhones next week with at least 2 of them (the phones with OLED display) with A12 SoC. Right now, would you call A12 as vaporware since it has not been launched yet? If so, why? I would assume you wouldn't call A12 as vaporware. Same way, Huawei is going to release Mate 20 in Oct-2018 with Kirin 980. There is no reason to doubt that, given the historical precedence. Calling Kirin 980 as vaporware does not look right to me.
    edited September 2018
  • Reply 28 of 88
    avon b7 said:
    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Cores and SoCs. Two different things. SoCs and phones. Two different things.

    Vapourware? The Kirin 980 was sitting there and running at IFA 2018. It is just waiting for the phone to launch (October 16th).


    Sorry, but the INDUSTRY ACCEPTED definition of who's first is when a device is shipped to customers. Until that time things like announcements or demos mean squat.

    Until customers can buy a device with a Kirin 980 it's just vaporware. And not very impressive at that.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 29 of 88
    tmay said:
    Soli said:
    gatorguy said:
    Huawei announced one themselves (short referenced in the AI article as HiSilicon), and supposedly available in a shipping smartphone before the end of the year, and more widely entering next year. 
    https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/31/huawei-debuts-the-kirin-980-the-worlds-first-7nm-mobile-chip/

    IMHO the early announcement is probably trying to one-up TSMC (and in the process Apple too), but no reason to think it's not legit. 
    Huawei isn't exactly high on my list of trustworthy companies.


    They may get it out in a shipping product sometime in October, but that would still be a month after Apple and nowhere near the volume that Apple will have. There entire run of the 980's may not even exceed what Apple sells in shipping devices on their first day.
    Nor  mine;

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13285/huawei-gpu-turbo-investigation

    Huawei's overhyped marketing isn't in line with either its technology or it stated performance.

    More cheating. Fits right in line with Huawei making false claims about being first.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 30 of 88
    tmaytmay Posts: 6,311member
    tmay said:

    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Huawei is saddled with an inferior GPU design in the Mali, and has decided to go with a second NPU on the 980 as that is about the only tech that they can really leverage. 

    Samsung will be out with it's first 7nm Exynos, and Qualcomm with the 7nm SD 855, early in 2019, both of which will find their way into the S10, and I expect both to be technically superior to the Kirin 980. After that, all of the flagship Android OS devices will be pretty much at parity through the next 7nm node, and the Apple will likely get the lead production at 5 nm, and I'll bet that they will leverage whatever die they can afford.


    To me, it looks like Huawei's SoC technology is about 1 year behind Qualcomm's, who in turn is 1 year behind Apple's in terms of overall performance (CPU, GPU, ISP, Modem etc etc). And that gap between Apple and Qualcomm will only widen in future, while Huawei is slowly and steadily catching up with Qualcomm.


    Kirin 980 does NOT support 4K video recording at 60fps (even with 7nm SoC), while Apple's and Qualcomm's SoCs supported this feature in 2017 and 2018 respectively with 10nm SoCs. Huawei phone buyers will have to wait until late 2019 to buy a new phone to get this feature. While Huawei has made good progress in SoCs in the last 3-4 years, they are still behind their Android competitors (and forget about catching up to Apple ever).

    For the most par, I agree with you.

    I think that the Kirin 980 is in the roughly the same performance class as the 845, overall, but is behind Qualcomm in technology, 7nm node not withstanding, That would put them both behind Apple at least a generation, and likely a bit more when you actually look at sales. Qualcomm will be the performance leader for Android OS devices by early 2019.

    On the other hand, Apple still has a huge advantage in it's corporate roadmap that covers its complete ecosystem, especially the OS's. I doubt that Huawei can ever gain an advantage on Apple until they come out with a distinct operating system to differentiate themselves from the other Android OS device makers.

    In the meantime, and not withstanding growth in emerging economies, that growth in smartphone unit sales world wide is expected to be flat, as is Apple's unit growth. Huawei is making very good gains in unit sales, but there is plenty of competition in this "zero sum" game.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 31 of 88
    tmay said:
    tmay said:

    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Huawei is saddled with an inferior GPU design in the Mali, and has decided to go with a second NPU on the 980 as that is about the only tech that they can really leverage. 

    Samsung will be out with it's first 7nm Exynos, and Qualcomm with the 7nm SD 855, early in 2019, both of which will find their way into the S10, and I expect both to be technically superior to the Kirin 980. After that, all of the flagship Android OS devices will be pretty much at parity through the next 7nm node, and the Apple will likely get the lead production at 5 nm, and I'll bet that they will leverage whatever die they can afford.


    To me, it looks like Huawei's SoC technology is about 1 year behind Qualcomm's, who in turn is 1 year behind Apple's in terms of overall performance (CPU, GPU, ISP, Modem etc etc). And that gap between Apple and Qualcomm will only widen in future, while Huawei is slowly and steadily catching up with Qualcomm.


    Kirin 980 does NOT support 4K video recording at 60fps (even with 7nm SoC), while Apple's and Qualcomm's SoCs supported this feature in 2017 and 2018 respectively with 10nm SoCs. Huawei phone buyers will have to wait until late 2019 to buy a new phone to get this feature. While Huawei has made good progress in SoCs in the last 3-4 years, they are still behind their Android competitors (and forget about catching up to Apple ever).

    For the most par, I agree with you.

    I think that the Kirin 980 is in the roughly the same performance class as the 845, overall, but is behind Qualcomm in technology, 7nm node not withstanding, That would put them both behind Apple at least a generation, and likely a bit more when you actually look at sales. Qualcomm will be the performance leader for Android OS devices by early 2019.

    On the other hand, Apple still has a huge advantage in it's corporate roadmap that covers its complete ecosystem, especially the OS's. I doubt that Huawei can ever gain an advantage on Apple until they come out with a distinct operating system to differentiate themselves from the other Android OS device makers.

    In the meantime, and not withstanding growth in emerging economies, that growth in smartphone unit sales world wide is expected to be flat, as is Apple's unit growth. Huawei is making very good gains in unit sales, but there is plenty of competition in this "zero sum" game.
    I agree with all of your comments, except the last one. Making Android smartphones is NOT a "zero sum" game. The ASP of Android phones is increasing slowly in the last 2 years. The companies who make bad choices (HTC, LG, Lenovo are prime examples) lose out while the companies who make good choices (Samsung, Huawei, Xioami etc) continue to make profit. It is not Android that is the problem, because there is no other practical choice for those companies anyway. It is about the decisions which are in their control (choice of SoC for the price point, Display, the customizations done to Android which more often mess up with the user experience, quality control, after sales support etc) where they fail miserably that make them lose money.
  • Reply 32 of 88
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    Soli said:
    avon b7 said:
    Soli said:
    avon b7 said:
    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Cores and SoCs. Two different things. SoCs and phones. Two different things.

    Vapourware? The Kirin 980 was sitting there and running at IFA 2018. It is just waiting for the phone to launch (October 16th).
    Building a prototype ≠ mass production. Until you can go into a store and by a device with that processor with the stated lithography then it's just vapourware because any claims about shipping a product can evaporate at any time. If you need some examples of how a working prototype or marketing piece is still vapourware just google failed Kickstarter products.

    And while you probably think there's a bias against companies that aren't Apple on this forum keep in mind that this also applies to Apple. It's applies to the current state of no AirPower and no AirPods case with inductive charging that was suppose to ship 3 seasons ago as well as Group FaceTime—which I believe was demoed—being removed from Mojave and iOS 12.
    Yes, but even you will have to admit that for a 2018 launch of this calibre, the Kirin 980 had to be in mass production for a while now so calling it vapourware is plain wrong.

    Add to that that a Mate 20 was actually spotted in the wild at IFA, LOL.

    https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_mate_20_spotted_in_the_wild_at_the_ifa_show_floor-news-33055.php

    Btw, excellent link on GPU Turbo.
    So far they haven't launched shit but you're already claiming victory. Again, I saw a demo of Group FaceTime for Mojave and iOS 12 that isn't happening and I saw demos of AirPower and an inductive AirPods case a year ago. Until it fucking happens don't say Mission Accomplished.


    At times, you get stuck at choice of words over the message being conveyed. This is one such example of that. For all practical purposes, we all know that Apple is going to launch 3 new iPhones next week with at least 2 of them (the phones with OLED display) with A12 SoC. Right now, would you A12 as vaporware since it has not been launched yet? If so, why? I would assume you wouldn't call A12 as vaporware. Same way, Huawei is going to release Mate 20 in Oct-2018 with Kirin 980. There is no reason to doubt that, given the historical precedence. Calling Kirin 980 as vaporware does not look right to me.
    How can the A12 be vapourware when Apple has yet to announce it? Don't confuse a statistical likelihood based on past events with how things will go in the future. As noted, Group FaceTime is vapourware. 1.5 years ago would you have expected they would go from the iPhone 7 series to the 8 series and "10", completely ignoring the whole 's' series nomenclature? I wouldn't have.

    I don't know if there's an axed feature or app between every full WWDC demo and the OS release, but it happens often enough that you shouldn't assume that all the features will make it to the GM. This seems much less likely with the iPhone, but I know of at least one time Apple demoed and promised an iPhone that didn't come, yet people waited… and bitched… and waited… and moaned… and waited… and eventually the iPhone with white glass arrived.

    Shit happens, and we seem to see it every year with Apple with some HW product so I don't understand why you think Apple is immune to this. The core difference is that is tends to happen (or maybe always happens) with products they're still months away from shipping which become even longer delays, whereas the next iPhone demos, pre-order, and launch date will all likely be 12 Sept, 14 Sept, and 21 Sept, respectively, because of both their history and because the timeframe is short enough that they know damn well if they'll have units to ship within a new 100% probability; and if, say, they find out that they have a bad batch that calls for a half a million rejects they can always knock off launch countries since we have no promises at this point.

    PS: The iPhone X didn't launch until 03 November, which is what Schiller stated during the presentation. Do you think they intended for it to launch in November or do you think that component (low yield on True Depth?) and/or production delays forced them to push it back. If the latter, would they have known that would happen if they had announced it at WWDC that year? I think they wanted their 22 Sept 2017 launch because that's that format they've followed previously.
    edited September 2018 tmaywatto_cobra
  • Reply 33 of 88
    Soli said:
    Soli said:
    avon b7 said:
    Soli said:
    avon b7 said:
    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Cores and SoCs. Two different things. SoCs and phones. Two different things.

    Vapourware? The Kirin 980 was sitting there and running at IFA 2018. It is just waiting for the phone to launch (October 16th).
    Building a prototype ≠ mass production. Until you can go into a store and by a device with that processor with the stated lithography then it's just vapourware because any claims about shipping a product can evaporate at any time. If you need some examples of how a working prototype or marketing piece is still vapourware just google failed Kickstarter products.

    And while you probably think there's a bias against companies that aren't Apple on this forum keep in mind that this also applies to Apple. It's applies to the current state of no AirPower and no AirPods case with inductive charging that was suppose to ship 3 seasons ago as well as Group FaceTime—which I believe was demoed—being removed from Mojave and iOS 12.
    Yes, but even you will have to admit that for a 2018 launch of this calibre, the Kirin 980 had to be in mass production for a while now so calling it vapourware is plain wrong.

    Add to that that a Mate 20 was actually spotted in the wild at IFA, LOL.

    https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_mate_20_spotted_in_the_wild_at_the_ifa_show_floor-news-33055.php

    Btw, excellent link on GPU Turbo.
    So far they haven't launched shit but you're already claiming victory. Again, I saw a demo of Group FaceTime for Mojave and iOS 12 that isn't happening and I saw demos of AirPower and an inductive AirPods case a year ago. Until it fucking happens don't say Mission Accomplished.


    At times, you get stuck at choice of words over the message being conveyed. This is one such example of that. For all practical purposes, we all know that Apple is going to launch 3 new iPhones next week with at least 2 of them (the phones with OLED display) with A12 SoC. Right now, would you A12 as vaporware since it has not been launched yet? If so, why? I would assume you wouldn't call A12 as vaporware. Same way, Huawei is going to release Mate 20 in Oct-2018 with Kirin 980. There is no reason to doubt that, given the historical precedence. Calling Kirin 980 as vaporware does not look right to me.
    How can the A12 be vapourware when Apple has yet to announce it? Don't confuse a statistical likelihood based on past events with how things will go in the future. As noted, Group FaceTime is vapourware. 1.5 years ago would you have expected they would go from the iPhone 7 series to the 8 series and "10", completely ignoring the whole 's' series nomenclature? I wouldn't have.

    I don't know if there's an axed feature or app between every full WWDC demo and the OS release, but it happens often enough that you shouldn't assume that all the features will make it to the GM. This seems much less likely with the iPhone, but I know of at least one time Apple demoed and promised an iPhone that didn't come, yet people waited… and bitched… and waited… and moaned… and waited… and eventually the iPhone with white glass arrived.

    Shit happens, and we seem to see it every year with Apple with some HW product so I don't understand why you think Apple is immune to this. The core difference is that is tends to happen (or maybe always happens) with products they're still months away from shipping which become even longer delays, whereas the next iPhone demos, pre-order, and launch date will all likely be 12 Sept, 14 Sept, and 21 Sept, respectively, because of both their history and because the timeframe is short enough that they know damn well if they'll have units to ship within a new 100% probability; and if, say, they find out that they have a bad batch that calls for a half a million rejects they can always knock off launch countries since we have no promises at this point.

    PS: The iPhone X didn't launch until 03 November, which is what Schiller stated during the presentation. Do you think they intended for it to launch in November or do you think that component (low yield on True Depth?) and/or production delays forced them to push it back. If the latter, would they have known that would happen if they had announced it at WWDC that year? I think they wanted their 22 Sept 2017 launch because that's that format they've followed previously.

    Agreed. Hard to argue anyway, better to wait until Oct-16-2018 and tell - It is NOT a vaporware now.
  • Reply 34 of 88
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    tmay said:
    melgross said:
    gatorguy said:
    Huawei announced one themselves (short referenced in the AI article as HiSilicon), and supposedly available in a shipping smartphone before the end of the year, and more widely entering next year. 
    https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/31/huawei-debuts-the-kirin-980-the-worlds-first-7nm-mobile-chip/

    IMHO the early announcement is probably trying to one-up TSMC (and in the process Apple too), but no reason to think it's not legit. 
    I was just going to post that too. Theirs will be the second out in a shipping product, not the first, which will be Apple’s.
    Apple's A12 volume has priority until TMSC makes the initial volume contracted for with Apple. There has been little in the way of rumors on the A12X, but TMSC would have also had to provide a smaller volume of production prior to release of production to other clients. I'm guessing that Huawei is on deck after that happens.
    If the rumors are true, and they sometimes are, the long overdue iPad Pro, and possible a new version of the “iPad”, will be shown on the 12th too. I expected to see one several months earlier. If it came out earlier, I would have expected an A11X. But the A11 is now water under the bridge as far as the highest performing flagship SoC from Apple. I can’t see that in a new iPad Pro. I can’t see a plain A12 either. So whatever contract Apple has with TSMC must include the A12X, if Apple will be producing them.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 35 of 88
    tmaytmay Posts: 6,311member
    tmay said:
    tmay said:

    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Huawei is saddled with an inferior GPU design in the Mali, and has decided to go with a second NPU on the 980 as that is about the only tech that they can really leverage. 

    Samsung will be out with it's first 7nm Exynos, and Qualcomm with the 7nm SD 855, early in 2019, both of which will find their way into the S10, and I expect both to be technically superior to the Kirin 980. After that, all of the flagship Android OS devices will be pretty much at parity through the next 7nm node, and the Apple will likely get the lead production at 5 nm, and I'll bet that they will leverage whatever die they can afford.


    To me, it looks like Huawei's SoC technology is about 1 year behind Qualcomm's, who in turn is 1 year behind Apple's in terms of overall performance (CPU, GPU, ISP, Modem etc etc). And that gap between Apple and Qualcomm will only widen in future, while Huawei is slowly and steadily catching up with Qualcomm.


    Kirin 980 does NOT support 4K video recording at 60fps (even with 7nm SoC), while Apple's and Qualcomm's SoCs supported this feature in 2017 and 2018 respectively with 10nm SoCs. Huawei phone buyers will have to wait until late 2019 to buy a new phone to get this feature. While Huawei has made good progress in SoCs in the last 3-4 years, they are still behind their Android competitors (and forget about catching up to Apple ever).

    For the most par, I agree with you.

    I think that the Kirin 980 is in the roughly the same performance class as the 845, overall, but is behind Qualcomm in technology, 7nm node not withstanding, That would put them both behind Apple at least a generation, and likely a bit more when you actually look at sales. Qualcomm will be the performance leader for Android OS devices by early 2019.

    On the other hand, Apple still has a huge advantage in it's corporate roadmap that covers its complete ecosystem, especially the OS's. I doubt that Huawei can ever gain an advantage on Apple until they come out with a distinct operating system to differentiate themselves from the other Android OS device makers.

    In the meantime, and not withstanding growth in emerging economies, that growth in smartphone unit sales world wide is expected to be flat, as is Apple's unit growth. Huawei is making very good gains in unit sales, but there is plenty of competition in this "zero sum" game.
    I agree with all of your comments, except the last one. Making Android smartphones is NOT a "zero sum" game. The ASP of Android phones is increasing slowly in the last 2 years. The companies who make bad choices (HTC, LG, Lenovo are prime examples) lose out while the companies who make good choices (Samsung, Huawei, Xioami etc) continue to make profit. It is not Android that is the problem, because there is no other practical choice for those companies anyway. It is about the decisions which are in their control (choice of SoC for the price point, Display, the customizations done to Android which more often mess up with the user experience, quality control, after sales support etc) where they fail miserably that make them lose money.
    Zero sum just means that one company's unit sales growth is coming from somebody else's sales declines. I would agree that ASP's are growing, but I don't think that margins are.
    edited September 2018 watto_cobra
  • Reply 36 of 88
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    avon b7 said:
    melgross said:

    avon b7 said:
    There were also rumours at one point claiming that Samsung was so interested in part of Huawei's 7nm fabrication that it was making offers on OLED panels for them to sweeten the deal.


    Never heard any of those rumors. Where did you read them?
    They popped up during the year. They only have passing interest. I don't log them. There were also rumours of a homebrew GPU and a Kirin 1020. They are fun and some are more convincing than others but it's always a lottery.
    Never heard them, and I keep up with this.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 37 of 88
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,623member
    Soli said:
    avon b7 said:
    Soli said:
    avon b7 said:
    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Cores and SoCs. Two different things. SoCs and phones. Two different things.

    Vapourware? The Kirin 980 was sitting there and running at IFA 2018. It is just waiting for the phone to launch (October 16th).
    Building a prototype ≠ mass production. Until you can go into a store and by a device with that processor with the stated lithography then it's just vapourware because any claims about shipping a product can evaporate at any time. If you need some examples of how a working prototype or marketing piece is still vapourware just google failed Kickstarter products.

    And while you probably think there's a bias against companies that aren't Apple on this forum keep in mind that this also applies to Apple. It's applies to the current state of no AirPower and no AirPods case with inductive charging that was suppose to ship 3 seasons ago as well as Group FaceTime—which I believe was demoed—being removed from Mojave and iOS 12.
    Yes, but even you will have to admit that for a 2018 launch of this calibre, the Kirin 980 had to be in mass production for a while now so calling it vapourware is plain wrong.

    Add to that that a Mate 20 was actually spotted in the wild at IFA, LOL.

    https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_mate_20_spotted_in_the_wild_at_the_ifa_show_floor-news-33055.php

    Btw, excellent link on GPU Turbo.
    So far they haven't launched shit but you're already claiming victory. Again, I saw a demo of Group FaceTime for Mojave and iOS 12 that isn't happening and I saw demos of AirPower and an inductive AirPods case a year ago. Until it fucking happens don't say Mission Accomplished.


    No victory to claim. No win to claim. 

    It's not about victory or winning. That's ridiculous.

    The Kirin 980 and Mate 20 are TOTALLY different things with regards to group Facetime and AirPower. One has already been presented - as a finished product. For the other, invites have already been issued and the presentation date is known:

    https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/news/2018/09/huawei-mate-20-to-be-revealed-on-16th-october/

  • Reply 38 of 88
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,623member
    avon b7 said:
    avon b7 said:
    HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term). 

    Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

    Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

    Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

    They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

    Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

    This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

    https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018

    blah blah Kirin blah blah Huawei blah blah 7nm blah blah

    Nobody cares about your constant Huawei shilling.

    Apple will be the THE FIRST company on the planet with 7nm chips. This is a fact. Huawei "announcing" they have the Kirin 980 means absolutely nothing. Apple will have working iPhones with the A12 7nm chip on September 12th. And they'll have 10's of millions shipping out a week later. Which means Apple would have had already received millions of A12 processors months ago. Unless you think you can fab a processor (in the millions) in only a couple days, and then get them into iPhones (by the millions) in a couple more days.

    All Huawei is trying to do is trick gullible/stupid people into thinking they were first, because Huawei knows Apple won't say anything about their A12 processor. So they can yap all they want knowing full well Apple will stay silent. Intelligent people know who's first (using INDUSTRY ACCEPTED STANDARDS). And that is Apple.

    Announcing is not shipping. The Kirin 980 is vaporware at this point. Just like last year when Huawei lied and claimed the Kirin 970 was the first processor with a neural processor (the A11 from Apple was first, and the 970 didn't ship until months later) by "announcing" it just before the iPhone came out. Do people actually fall for this crap?



    Now speaking about the 980, how come it takes Huawei years and over 1,000 engineers to build a processor that uses off-the-shelf CPU and GPU cores? And still uses the vastly inferior UFS for storage (while Apple will be on their 4th generation NVMe)? What exactly have they developed in terms of IP related to processors?

    I see you linked Anandtech, but left out the performance claims. They're stating a Geekbench single core score of 3,300 for an A76 core (as used in the 980). The A11 scores 4,200. So a year old A11 core on the older 10nm process is STILL significantly faster than an A76 core on 7nm. Doesn't seem that impressive to me. At all.
    Cores and SoCs. Two different things. SoCs and phones. Two different things.

    Vapourware? The Kirin 980 was sitting there and running at IFA 2018. It is just waiting for the phone to launch (October 16th).


    Sorry, but the INDUSTRY ACCEPTED definition of who's first is when a device is shipped to customers. Until that time things like announcements or demos mean squat.

    Until customers can buy a device with a Kirin 980 it's just vaporware. And not very impressive at that.
    Can you give me a link to that INDUSTRY ACCEPTED definition?
  • Reply 39 of 88
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    Soli said:
    How can the A12 be vapourware when Apple has yet to announce it? Don't confuse a statistical likelihood based on past events with how things will go in the future. As noted, Group FaceTime is vapourware. 1.5 years ago would you have expected they would go from the iPhone 7 series to the 8 series and "10", completely ignoring the whole 's' series nomenclature? I wouldn't have.

    I don't know if there's an axed feature or app between every full WWDC demo and the OS release, but it happens often enough that you shouldn't assume that all the features will make it to the GM. This seems much less likely with the iPhone, but I know of at least one time Apple demoed and promised an iPhone that didn't come, yet people waited… and bitched… and waited… and moaned… and waited… and eventually the iPhone with white glass arrived.

    Shit happens, and we seem to see it every year with Apple with some HW product so I don't understand why you think Apple is immune to this. The core difference is that is tends to happen (or maybe always happens) with products they're still months away from shipping which become even longer delays, whereas the next iPhone demos, pre-order, and launch date will all likely be 12 Sept, 14 Sept, and 21 Sept, respectively, because of both their history and because the timeframe is short enough that they know damn well if they'll have units to ship within a new 100% probability; and if, say, they find out that they have a bad batch that calls for a half a million rejects they can always knock off launch countries since we have no promises at this point.

    PS: The iPhone X didn't launch until 03 November, which is what Schiller stated during the presentation. Do you think they intended for it to launch in November or do you think that component (low yield on True Depth?) and/or production delays forced them to push it back. If the latter, would they have known that would happen if they had announced it at WWDC that year? I think they wanted their 22 Sept 2017 launch because that's that format they've followed previously.
    Agreed. Hard to argue anyway, better to wait until Oct-16-2018 and tell - It is NOT a vaporware now.
    I'd absolutely bet on the Kirin 980 launching this year and give favorable odds that they'll make their stated launch date because I have no reason to doubt it, but Huawei hasn't earned any trust from me so I also wouldn't be surprised it it was pushed back. Kind of like when someone in their 70s dies in their sleep. You don't necessarily expect it, but you're also probably not surprised by it.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 40 of 88
    nunzy said:
    Only Apple is rich enough to pull this off. That's because we buy their products.
    Qualcomm won't have any problems keeping pace with Apple in the nanometer race. You watch. They have to keep pace in order for all the Android flagships to match Apple's iPhone. It's a matter of pride for Qualcomm. They'll definitely have some 7nm Snapdragon 865, so Apple won't have any bragging rights. There's no way Apple is going to be allowed to sit alone at the top of the heap of having the densest SoCs for smartphones. I don't think Apple has enough money or the determination to break Qualcomm and stop them from going nm to nm against Apple. Apple may get there first but it won't last long.
    nunzy
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