Slashdot Mirror
Apple and Samsung Already Working On A9 Processor
itwbennett writes According to a report in Korean IT Times, Samsung Electronics has begun production of the A9 processor, the next generation ARM-based CPU for iPhone and iPad. Korea IT Times says Samsung has production lines capable of FinFET process production (a cutting-edge design for semiconductors that many other manufacturers, including AMD, IBM and TSMC, are adopting) in Austin, Texas and Giheung, Korea, but production is only taking place in Austin. Samsung invested $3.9 billion in that plant specifically to make chips for Apple. So now Apple can say its CPU is "Made in America."
And as soon as the first chip comes off the assembly line, Apple will sue Samsung for patent infringement. :-)
No, but they might have spent $3.9B so they can say its CPU is not "Made in China" and have a Chinese company "procure" the designs and start making the next gen chips based on the tech, while also having to worry about grey market versions of Samsung and Apple devices that utilize the processor.
If they can control a key component of the device (and "made in america" certainly provides that), then they can minimize grey market goods impact on their branded devices by potentially relegating them to an inferior parts chain.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
apple and qualcomm are custom designs that run the ARM instruction set. only three other companies in the world have that license. everyone else gets to make the ARM reference design
The byzantine balance of relationships between Samsung and Apple seem beyond even Milo Minderbinder's capacity for finding vested interests between mortal enemies.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Seriously, 1 GB of RAM? Still?
I agree, with QEMM, 640K ought to be enough for anybody. Who needs 1GB.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
What I see in this is Apple is NOT letting up their push for better CPU/Graphics.
The long term plan is obviously to be able to DOMINATE through superiority.
Designed in Germany by Indians for production in China by Koreans to be unpacked by Texans and purchased by Mexicans.
Actually, Samsung owns a fab in Texas that makes Apple SoCs - and that's all it does.
And that's been the case for a few years now, even through the Samsung-Apple patent spat.
It's a complex relationship, to the say the least -
I think the relevant points got left out... the summary missed the most interesting parts:
1G L2 - all of graphics memory now fits in the L2 cache
14nm design - someone needs to update Wikipedia; they can probably clock it faster than the op speed listed there
Quad core - this thing may be in the next MacBook Air
Memory bus - Apple's memory bus is still faster than everyone else's by a mile; pays to have the Alpha->NetScaler->PA Semi guys on the payroll
This things is probably going to beat the pants off every other ARM chip in a while. Oh yeah, forgot: they're already sampling.
There's a great website called LMGTFY... :)
But, as a FYI, Apple was one of the founders of ARM, so it stands to reason Apple would have access to any kind of licensing they wanted.
http://www.linleygroup.com/new... is from 2012, and is pretty accurate.
List of third-party implementations of ARM architecture shows Qualcomm Snapdragon (ARMv7), Apple A series (ARMv8), Applied Micro X-Gene (ARMv8), NVIDIA Denver (ARMv8), and Cavium ThunderX (ARMv8). Everything else is ARM's own Cortex reference design.
says the user of a phone OS that requires more than 1GB of RAM.
If I wanted just a phone, I'd buy a flip phone and pay a lower monthly bill. People buy iPhone or Android devices instead of flip phones because they want a multi-purpose* mobile computing device.
Samsung's different divisions have little to do with each other. When I worked in the Flash memory business some years ago, various Samsung business units - their optical drives, their phones, were among our customers. During price negotiations, when I'd ask our rep why they don't go in-house to Samsung's flash if they want such a low price, usually the answer was that they didn't like them, and preferred us. So don't imagine that if a Samsung BU builds something that another BU can use, that they necessarily use that.
The vast majority of what's different between iOS and OSX is the UI
That and end users' inability to configure iOS's Gatekeeper.
and the OSX UI wouldn't be appropriate in any way for a phone.
How would the OS X UI be inappropriate for a phone docked to a Bluetooth keyboard and AirPlay monitor? The docked phone's touch screen would behave like a trackpad. Or how would it be inappropriate for an iPad with a clip-on keyboard and trackpad?
They have been going to get divorced and accusing each other of all kind of horrible things for the last decade, yet they are constantly on some romantic trip together. Can't these two decide if they love or hate each other already?