Apple Renews Contract With Samsung Over A-Series Processors

tlhIngan writes "In an interesting move since Apple decided to partner with TSMC a few weeks ago, the Korea Economic Daily is reporting that Apple has re-signed a contract with Samsung to produce the A-series chips Apple uses to power its iPads, iPhones and iPods. TSMC is still to produce chips for Apple, though Samsung is poised to take over from 2015."

Comments

Pick a rumor, any rumor:

[edxwelch]

so far:
TSMC to make Apple chips
GlobalFoundries to make Apple chips
Apple to buy it's own foundry
and now Samsung to make Apple chips

Re:Pick a rumor, any rumor:

[BLToday]

They may all be true.
TSMC: Apple is feeling them out with older Apple A-series designs for Apple TV.
GF: Maybe Apple is going to use the AMD's A-series APU (Xbox ONE and PS4) in some unknown device (console?) or iMac Retina. Apple needs fast graphic performance more than CPU performance on their Retina series of devices.
Samsung: A proven and reliable source, so Apple would have a lot of reasons to continue to use them.
Own fab: why not control your own destiny

Re:Simple business decision

[ygtai]

The reality may simply be Samsung offered a very low price that Apple cannot refuse. TSMC, while maintaining a 40%+ profit margin, doesn't have to lower its price; customers are well queued in line. However Samsung wants to expand their foundry business badly.

Re:Simple business decision

[ShanghaiBill]

Apple can get away with whatever it does in US, at least as much as Samsung can in Korea.

You should read up on the history of Samsung, the history of Korea, the intertwined political/economic dynasties, and the current state of politics in Korea before you make such a ridiculous statement.

Re:Think about this one people

[Cassini2]

Apple is shipping 5.4 million iPhones and iPads per week. PC sales are at 5.9 million units per week. These numbers were pieced together from macworld and reuters. Assuming all of Apple's dreams come true, in 2015 Apple must plan for the case it is selling more processors than Intel, which will mean that Apple needs all the fab capacity it can get. Additionally, given the recent track record on new product launches at TSMC and GloFo, Apple needs a backup plan if one or more fab suppliers have problems.

Even if Apple purchased a new fab, additional reserve capacity might be needed. That may be enough to ink a deal with Samsung. Samsung is the only company with the proven ability to make enough cell phone and tablet processors to cover the majority of the world wide market, including Apple.

Re:Simple business decision

[Rockoon]

Our CEO's are powerful enough to avoid being convicted of felonies to begin with.