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Report: TSMC to be the only manufacturer of processors for the iPhone 7

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According to a report from South Korean news outlet The Electronic Times, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, better known as TSMC, has reached a deal with Apple to be the sole provider of the processor used in the next-generation iPhone. TSMC and Samsung shared the task of building the processors for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.

The report claims that TSMC edged out Samsung to win the job thanks to its 10-nanometer manufacturing technology. TSMC is expected to go into full production of the next-generation chip, likely called the A10, sometime in June. The iPhone 7 is expected to be announced sometime in September.

TSMC notably produced the A8 chip found in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, but Samsung came back on board to shoulder some of the production of the A9 chip used in the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. With that partnership, however, came a significant amount of controversy.

Following the launch of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus last year, users started noticing differences in the performance of models using the TSMC-made A9 chip and the Samsung-made A9 chip. Benchmark tests and videos showed that an iPhone 6s with the TSMC chip ran cooler and offered better battery life than an iPhone with a Samsung chip did. Apple even came out and commented on the discrepancy, saying that “even taking into account variable component differences” battery life between iPhone 6s models could vary within 2-3 percent of each other.

There was also controversy surrounding the way about which Samsung went in winning part of the A9 production business. A Taiwanese court ruled that a former TSMC research and development director revealed a variety of the company’s top trade secrets to Samsung, allowing it to catch up and win production of the A9 chip.

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Comments

  1. viciosodiego - 8 years ago

    Samsung is going to take a huge hit from this.

  2. taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

    Old new this has been rumored since at least October. I think the difference in battery life with TSMC and it’s faster switch to smaller die sets helped them when the deal.

  3. And there was much rejoicing….

  4. tomtubbs - 8 years ago

    16nm to 10nm. Anyone got a rough idea of possible energy savings?

    • taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

      From what I see it has 75% power savings over previous chips. 10 nm also costs less to make then 20 nm and 16/14 nm chips. The costs for 10 nm is back down close to what 28 nm chips were.

      • tomtubbs - 8 years ago

        sounds about what’s being promised -“. The 10nm process will have 2.1 times the logic density of the 16nm node along with a 20% speed gain and 40% power reduction. The company demonstrated a 256 Mbytes SRAM made in the process.” Only thing “TSMC expects its 10nm to be in production by the end of 2016”
        http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326286

        They been able to bring it forward 7-8months?

    • Sebastian - 8 years ago

      It’s just a marketing term. The distance between the transistors is actually far higher, like 16 or 18 nm.

  5. Tony Torres - 8 years ago

    apple does this all the time, it gets its components from various companies even though its going to be in one type of model of the machine, Recently I purchase a mac pro late 2013 and the first unit has some weird issues with the graphics card and the flash drive was freaking fast it was much faster than the first unit. Also that machine had install el Capitan which means that it was assemble during this time of the year or when el Capitan was out for the public. The thing is that it was very finicky. I return the Unit and had it exchange for another one, this one was made much later because it came with Maverick, and the machine acted more stable the flash drive was much more slower so I was wondering maybe the first one was so unstable because of how they assemble the machine or something like overclocked, the fact is that if I would of kept that machine down the line a problem would of occurred. I sense that the mac pro on the second unit runs more stable and its feels that its less faster than the first unit. But who knows what apple does the show you how it looks outside as to it looks like a iPhone 6S and 6S plus but the components are different and they very different when it comes to what components they use in its interior. The same goes with the mac computers.

  6. alanaudio - 8 years ago

    Funny how all those rumours originating from Korea about how Samsung had almost got this order in the bag turned out to be untrue. We had similar stories from Korea last year concerning A9 production, but that Samsung was going to be the sole foundry. Those rumours turned out to be wrong too.

  7. Abedoss - 8 years ago

    Apple is working hard to make multi-manufacturer for most important parts of its devices, why could it depend on one manufacturer again?
    Bad rumor, wrong rumor.

    • tomtubbs - 8 years ago

      It’s providing 10nm when Samsung isn’t able?

      • Abedoss - 8 years ago

        They can handle the “multi-nm” as what they did in 6s.

  8. davidt4n - 8 years ago

    Samsung will be back again with AMOLED screen supply.

  9. Drew (@gettysburg11s) - 8 years ago

    I guess this is good for Apple. I am not sure I really care. As an avid Apple fan and iPhone user, I simply want my Apple gear to keep on working perfectly, like it almost always does. The current battery life of my iPhone 6s is actually very good. I think this is true for most people, unless your daily job requires you to constantly use your phone away from a power outlet. I actually have my iPhone 6s in a Belkin dock at work when I am not using it. Anyways, go TSMC!

  10. Gregory Wright - 8 years ago

    I’ll save the link to this article for future reference. At some point, maybe June or July, a factual article will be written refuting this one.

  11. Robert Wood - 8 years ago

    If this new refers not only to TSMC making A10 but if A10 chip is made on 10nm node fabrication than Apple will surprise us in many ways when iphone 7 is announced. Way better performance, batter battery life,.Who knows Apple could have put Quad core A10 with many peripheral chips integrated using TMSC’s FinFET stacked module design. Looks like Samsung is caught off-guard with TSMC’s progress on chip fabrication and packaging loosing Apple’s business.

Author

Avatar for Chance Miller Chance Miller

Chance is an editor for the entire 9to5 network and covers the latest Apple news for 9to5Mac.

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