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TSMC Preparing To Manufacturer A6X Chip As Apple Looks to Ditch Samsung

Posted by Unknown on from the about-that-lawsuit dept.

An anonymous reader writes with reports that TSMC is preparing to do a first test run of Apple's A6X chipset currently manufactured by Samsung. The TSMC manufactured chips will feature a process shrink from 32nm to 28nm, and there's a good chance Apple will grant them the contract for the next generation A7 chip. From SlashGear: "The test will kick off in Q1 2013, The China Times reports, with TSMC producing a new, 28nm version of the existing 32nm A6X that Samsung has been producing for the full-sized iPad 4th-gen; the smaller chip, which will likely be more power efficient as well, will debut in a new iPad 5th-gen and iPad mini 2."

21 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Now we can wait for the hardware repetition of the Google Maps fiasco. Whose head is going to roll this time when the shit hits the fan?

    1. Re:Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by neokushan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is slightly different. The same chip is being produced (it's Apple's design), it's just a different manufacturer. No doubt Apple will be paying per chip and not per wafer, so if anything does fuck up it'll be on TSMC's head. Plus it's not like TSMC doesn't know a thing or two about producing chips.

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    2. Re:Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by _xeno_ · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They already did the hardware version of the Google Maps fiasco. People are literally returning the MacBook Pros that use the new, non-Samsung screens, in hopes of being able to buy one that uses the older Samsung screens, because the newer screens apparently ghost like crazy.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    3. Re:Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is slightly different. The same chip is being produced (it's Apple's design), it's just a different manufacturer. No doubt Apple will be paying per chip and not per wafer, so if anything does fuck up it'll be on TSMC's head. Plus it's not like TSMC doesn't know a thing or two about producing chips.

      TSMC is the world's largest dedicated foundry but pales in comparison to the chipmaking operation at Samsung. They can produce good chips no doubt, but I would put money on higher than normal failure rates (like iPhones going bad) and lower than normal yields (like iPhone 6 or "New iPad Mini" stocking fuck-ups) for at least a generation or two until they have the details nailed down. This kind of thing doesn't get turned on overnight, or even in a year or two.

    4. Re:Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by gaspyy · · Score: 5, Informative

      At first I thought this was a hyperbole or just some anecdote, but it seems to be a legitimate issue: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4034848

    5. Re:Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by JDG1980 · · Score: 5, Informative

      This is slightly different. The same chip is being produced (it's Apple's design), it's just a different manufacturer. No doubt Apple will be paying per chip and not per wafer, so if anything does fuck up it'll be on TSMC's head. Plus it's not like TSMC doesn't know a thing or two about producing chips.

      Remember "bumpgate"?

      I don't really care what TSMC's wafer yields will be; that's Apple's problem. What concerns me is that TSMC may make faulty chips that break down over time, so that iDevices start to malfunction shortly after the 1-year warranty is up.

      TSMC's record is not encouraging. They totally screwed up the transition to 28nm according to both nVidia and Qualcomm. And it is that process on which Apple plans to build.

      Apple needs to focus on building good products, not screwing over their competitors.

    6. Re:Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by neokushan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think this move is just to screw over Samsung (although that's no doubt a happy coincidence for apple). I think someone at Apple has realised that Samsung could decide not to renew the contract and just as easily screw over Apple. As someone else has already pointed out, Apple is still keeping Samsung as a manufacturer in the meantime so even if TSMC does fuck up horribly, Apple won't be in too much trouble.

      There's nothing wrong with ensuring you have more than one supplier for a critical component, especially one that only a handful of companies can produce.

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    7. Re:Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by _xeno_ · · Score: 3, Informative

      Somewhat hilariously if you Google IPS image retention, you will find a ton of articles about the MacBook Pro Retina display problems.

      Including this one, that explains the problem is basically limited to MacBook Pros with LG displays, instead of the Samsung displays some use. The Samsung display also has better contrast and proper color calibration that the LG panels lack.

      I can't help but find the whole thing hilarious.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    8. Re:Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by poetmatt · · Score: 4, Informative

      TSMC is at the forefront of producing chips, yes. The word that's not there is successfully. It's not entirely their fault, except that it is.

      Examples: http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/04/19/qualcomm-28nm-capacity/1
      http://www.extremetech.com/computing/130937-tsmc-still-struggling-with-28nm-qualcomm-and-nvidia-threaten-to-jump-ship

    9. Re:Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They could have done it differently, and coexisted with Apple. Now, they reap their reward. I don't really understand why this is so hard for the Android fanbois to understand.

      I don't think you understand Apple's business model. They've got a loooong list of bullshit patents ready to unleash on anybody who dares to compete with them. Samsung is the most successful Android phone maker, that's why they're being picked on. When Samsung defeats the 'rounded corners' lawsuit Apple will just pick another one from their list. So it goes...

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      No sig today...
    10. Re:Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by LordLimecat · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I think someone at Apple has realised that Samsung could decide not to renew the contract and just as easily screw over Apple.

      Seems to me that doing so would simply result in Samsung not getting a contract that someone else will happily fulfill. They may be competitors, but why would samsung deprive themselves of a large, lucrative contract simply to spite and inconvenience a competitor? Sounds like bad business to me.

    11. Re:Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by cheesybagel · · Score: 3, Informative

      same chip is being produced (it's Apple's design), it's just a different manufacturer

      Tell that to AMD. They have been trying to outsource CPU manufacturing for years and they kept failing along the way. First AMD wanted to outsource to Chartered which was supposedly using the same manufacturing process (developed jointly by IBM, AMD, Samsung, Chartered) but it turned out they couldn't just trivially port their design over. Then they considered switching to TSMC. Another fail. They also considered switching GPU manufacturing from TSMC to GlobalFoundries after purchasing ATI. Yet another fail. The more low level optimizations the chip has the harder it is to port it. You don't just hit a compile button and then the thing magically works. Each manufacturing process has its own little details you have to work around in order for the design to be manufactureable and hit the right performance and power consumption targets.

    12. Re:Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by mk1004 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Company A sells a product.
      Company B makes a better product, using parts purchased from company A.
      Company A closely copies company B's product, as companies have done since the beginning of time.
      Company B files suit against Company A for infringement.
      Company B divorces all business from company A, as companies have done since the beginning of time.

      Company A's parts business is just fine, since company B isn't that much of their business.

      Nobody is saying Samsung is a victim of anything, except perhaps bad patents and jury foremen. And no, I use Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and Android. It's not just Android fanbois who think Samsung got a bad deal in the US lawsuit. Apple's move to TSMC isn't a big deal for them, however.

      --
      I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
    13. Re:Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by X.25 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I've heard there are problems with some LG-make screens but not everyone is running into the store for an exchange. The nice thing is Apple is exchanging them if you notice a problem. I wouldn't call it a fiasco.

      I presume you've read this, then?

      https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4034848?start=0&tstart=0

      You can start from page 420 (heh), and go backwards.

    14. Re:Ditching strong partners -- smart move! by alvieboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I recall reading that, despite being the "same chip", actual layout is Samsung, so switching to another HW process will require them to at least redo the placement of all the core components (read, transistors and so on), and rewrite some others.

      Note that not only the ARM core needs replacement (I think ARM does not sell the full implementation design, but only the high-level design), but all other components that are inside the SoC are probably Samsung IP or licensed to it (both design and implementation, although some might come from other IP vendors, like Synopsys), so they need to replace those as well.

      This will require a lot of QA effort, and is very risky.

  2. Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm so excited to hear about every minor thing Apple does. They sure are a groundbreaking company! Imagine, switching to a different supplier. What insight! What killer business acumen they must have!

    I've never in my life heard of such a thing. An electronics company sourcing a different supplier for components!

    HOLY SHIT APPLE IS SO FUCKING AMAZING! PLEASE POST MORE INTERESTING STORIES ABOUT APPLE!

    I heard a rumor that they are stocking their stationary cabinets with scripto pens, and are no longer using Bics. Is this true!?!?!??!?!?!!

  3. Say it ain't so by PPH · · Score: 5, Funny

    This could sour the cozy relationship between Apple and Samsung.

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    Have gnu, will travel.
  4. Looks like I better act soon by JDG1980 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I had been planning to purchase an iPad 4 for a while, but I guess I had better do it soon. I don't really want to be a beta tester for Apple/TSMC. There have been serious problems with TSMC's 28nm process and I don't trust them to get it right. And during the past year or so, Apple has shown a disturbing trend of prioritizing screwing over their competitors (Samsung and Google) above providing a good customer experience, as demonstrated by the Apple Maps fiasco and the myriad of problems with LG displays on the Retina MacBook Pro. I'm very concerned that corners will be cut in the rush to TSMC fabrication.

    1. Re:Looks like I better act soon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      HI! I found an update to your 7-month-old news that you might find interesting. From this link:

      “28nm yield and 28nm supply situation have both improved substantially. And so we feel pretty good about the balance of supply and demand at the moment,” said Jen Hsun-Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia.

      Qualcomm seems to be satisfied with TSMC’s output, but clearly points to progression that could have been made.

      “We are above the high end of our previous revenue and earnings guidance as demand in 28nm supply improved as the quarter progressed. This gives us a strong base to build off of. We are looking forward to next year, we expect double-digit revenue and non-GAAP earnings growth again in fiscal 2013, said Paul Jacobs, chairman and chief executive officer at Qualcomm.

      But I can see what you mean about TSMC not being able to get it right. After all, in June they had some problems, and by November, the people they were having problems supplying both indicated that they were pleased with the improvements and the results TSMC had achieved in the intervening 6 months.

      This is clearly the mark of a company that is doomed to fail at producing any chip, at any volume, for any customer! I can't wait to hear more interesting prognostication from you, based on 6 month old data that has since been revised to show that the problem is largely resolved!

  5. Jobs' prideful legacy will be their downfall by TheSkepticalOptimist · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Getting rid of partners like Samsung will hurt them in the long run. The only reason why Samsung became one of the top suppliers of parts for Apple is due to Apple's long history of problems and failures with smaller partners unable to produce significant quantities with the quality expected by Apple. Of course TSMC is not a small company, but Apple dropping Samsung for parts is about pride not intelligent planning or business strategy. Why drop a relationship that works for something less predictable?

    Apple is going to have a very tough year in 2013. They blew their wad last year for product updates and except for minor product revisions will not offer anything interesting until at least the fall if Apple TV is not actually a myth. In the meantime news like this will only scare investors at a time when there had already been a loss in faith with Apple's business strategy.

    I think the problem with Apple is they are still trying to follow in Steve Jobs' footsteps. It's only Steve Jobs that had a hate on for Android, Google, and anything connected to them, so pursuing this prideful vendetta against Samsung is like Steve's dying wish. The problem is that Apple is going to have to eventually start making their own decisions and continuing a strategy to remove Google and Samsung as business partners is not in their best interests.

    --
    I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
  6. I don't know what you're smoking... by tlambert · · Score: 3, Informative

    The A6X puts everything else in the mobile industry to shame.

    http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6472/51764.png
    http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph6472/51759.png

    The first graph is a masure of memory bus bandwidth; while this has historically sucked on ARM in general, and Apple has had the lead in this area because they started life with their own memory controller design replacing the one normally supplied by the ARM folks, this lead has been significantly narrowed in the Samsung Exynos line. There are still some optimizations to be had to match the A6X speed, but it's close enough that for an optimized pipeline, it's not going to matter as much as the graph shows. nVidia's ARM offerings still have pretty sucky memory bandwidth, as do the Qualcomm chips, like the SnapDragon series.

    The second graph measures the GL pipeline, and since the Linux stack moves copies of surfaces rather than GL over the user/kernel boundary, there's significant overhead in the protection domain crossing, as well as in amount of data being moved (which devolves, again, to the memory bandwidth issue).

    Unless you go direct GL across the user/kernel boundary, and run the surface processing entirely in kernel space, if you are doing software compositing, even in the case of 2D, which applies to the vast majority of surface transforms, since people simply do not watch YouTube videos on rotating cubes or on spheres, you are talking 3 protection domain crossings to get the data from user space to the GPU, process it in the GPU, bring it back to user space, and then push it again across the boundary to get it into the frame buffer.

    Basically you are comparing a graphics stack that sucks with one that generally doesn't, except under specifically defined circumstances (and in those cases DirectX beats GL in terms of reduced system vulnerability to unbounded texture processing for both the Linux and MacOS X/iOS stacks).

    Either way, the comparisons in those graphs are not straight apples-to-apples unless you happen to be running Android on all your devices, and so have the additional expensive-on-ARM copy and protection domain operations on all the platforms.