Not All iPhone 6s Processors Are Created Equal (itworld.com)

itwbennett writes: Apple is splitting the manufacture of the A9 processor for its iPhone 6s between TSMC (~60%) and rival Samsung (~40%) — "and they are not created equal," writes Andy Patrizio. For starters, Chipworks noted that Samsung uses 14nm while TSMC uses 16nm. A Reddit user posted tests of a pair of 6s Plus phones and found the TSMC chip had eight hours of battery life vs. six hours for the Samsung. Meanwhile, benchmark tests from the folks at MyDriver (if Mr. Patrizio's efforts with Google Translate got it right) also found that the Samsung chip is a bigger drain on the phone's battery, while the TSMC chip is slightly faster and runs a bit cooler. So how do you know which chip you got? There's an app for that.

Comments

Too little, too late

[akahige]

More to the point, how can you find out which chip the phone has before buying it?

Re:Too little, too late

[soft_guy]

The fact that they ship an improved version every year or so is NOT the issue here. Seriously if the new version is not a big enough improvement over the one you have, you don't need to buy it. You can keep your phone for 2 years, or 3 years, or however long you want. That is hardly "pushing it through the throats of customers". You have to have a major victim mentality to think that. I do agree though that shipping non-equivalent versions of the processor is a big deal. That's not okay.

Re:Too little, too late

[gstoddart]

I'm sorry, but who is pushing a new iPhone "through the throats of customers"??

You are completely free to not fucking buy one.

Did you know that car makers push out a new version, only slightly different, annually? Companies who make golf clubs, also push out new versions at least annually. And companies who make TVs, they also do this.

If customers buy a new expensive phone every year or two, don't blame the vendor. Free will doesn't stop just because you've bought a product.

Re:Too little, too late

[tripleevenfall]

A vendor making a mid-model year substitution for a better product seems like a benefit to me, not a detriment. Instead of nobody getting the improved version, at least some people do.

Re:Too little, too late

[Grishnakh]

If sourcing substantially different parts from different vendors is necessary to meet production volume, then they need to have different part names and model names for these products. This isn't a case of having resistors or capacitors from different manufacturers, something that won't affect performance in any measurable way, this is a case of having two completely different CPUs, with very different performance from the two. 6h vs. 8h in a power-consumption test is a huge, huge difference. Intel sells CPUs all the time which are very similar, but have performance that differs to that extent: they use completely different part numbers to describe these parts.

Re:Too little, too late

[UnknowingFool]

If sourcing substantially different parts from different vendors is necessary to meet production volume, then they need to have different part names and model names for these products.

Let's start with the first thing: These parts are not supposed to be substantially different. They are the same design but at a smaller feature size. The fact that they are is a problem and Apple will have to get with Samsung and TSMC to figure what is the issue. Second, different sources parts are known internally but not externally. After all, does Intel rename a Broadwell Core i7 differently when it comes from Oregon or Arizona or Ireland? No. There is a part number that tells where the chip was made and you as a customer don't know where it came from when you order it from Newegg or Micron or wherever.

This isn't a case of having resistors or capacitors from different manufacturers, something that won't affect performance in any measurable way, this is a case of having two completely different CPUs, with very different performance from the two.

How is an dual core A9 from Apple a "completely different CPU" than an dual core A9 from Apple. They are the exact same design by Apple. If you feel that makes them "completely different", did you lecture Microsoft when they switched Xbox processors? From what I remember IBM Xenon processor was shrink reduced from 90nm to 65nm to 45nm. These are all "different" CPUs to you?

6h vs. 8h in a power-consumption test is a huge, huge difference.

And if it's true, Apple will have to look into why.

Intel sells CPUs all the time which are very similar, but have performance that differs to that extent: they use completely different part numbers to describe these parts.

The problem with this comparison is that a Core i7 is not the same as a Core i5 with actual differences like L3 cache size, TDP, clock speed, etc. and these come from different designs.

Re:Too little, too late

[Anubis IV]

MacRumors didn't do any testing at all. They're just compiling lists of tests that others are doing, in an effort to get a sense for whether or not there actually are large differences. And the A9 chips being provided by Samsung and TSMC are SoCs, not just CPUs, so it makes perfect sense that they'd be running benchmarks that include video processing and other non-CPU-bound tasks, given that the A9 is responsible for those as well.

Moreover, given the variance in performance that can occur within chips from even a single manufacturer, it's no surprise that there will be variation between the two models. If there weren't, it would be a news story. As such, the important questions to ask are:
1) Is the difference between the two broadly reproducible (i.e. is Samsung consistently behind), or is it this just an anecdotal case involving a single low-performing Samsung chip being compared to a single high-performing TSMC chip?

2) Given the variation, do either of them fall below the specs provided by Apple?

We don't have enough data yet to answer #1, but, again, as more data is coming to light, it's sounding like things are not so lopsided as the initial reports indicated. TSMC may have a slight edge, but it's not anywhere in the ballpark of what was being reported earlier. As for #2, by all indications, the answer is "no, neither of them fall below Apple specs". Which is to say, some people may win out on the luck of the draw and get a phone with a chip that performs better...which was already the case anyway, since chips are never perfectly identical in their performance. All a manufacturer will do is guarantee that the performance falls within a certain range, so some will always perform better than others, even when built using the same process from the same manufacturer.

Re:Too little, too late

[Aaden42]

Apple doesn’t “send down” any updates. You’re free to take or leave any OS update you like. They’re remind you a bit, but nobody is forced to upgrade the OS they have on their phone right now.

And do you *seriously* think Apple releases updates to “actively try to fuck up older but functioning hardware”? Paranoid much? Yes, some updates have made older hardware work less well. Other updates have improved long standing issues on older hardware. That’s the nature of software development. It’s not a good thing, but it’s a far distance between “didn’t test it as much on three-year-old hardware” and “let’s intentionally add this bug to make the old phone flake out.”

Re:Too little, too late

[macs4all]

That doesn't make their points any less valid,

So sez the Anonymous COWARD.

And yes; yes it does.

If the percentage of Apple-Hater posts (most of which are simply over-the-top) that were ACs was anything less than 97% on Slashdot, your argument would be more credible.

But it's not, and so, you're not.

Re:16 nm vs 14 nm

[TheRaven64]

I'm not particularly familiar with either company's process, but it's been a couple of generations since you could actually make meaningful comparisons based on the quoted nm size, because everyone has different smallest features that they measure when deciding that they are Xnm. That said, we passed the end of Dennard scaling a long time ago. You'd expect the same chip to be consuming about as much power, be slightly more able to dissipate the heat. It may also have less leakage, though that depends on a number of other factors.

In fact a new version often is how it should be

[Sycraft-fu]

Companies should regularly update their products to use the latest tech. There is no reason to freeze a product and not update it for a long time just to make owners feel like they still have the "latest". Rather they should update as often as changes in available technology/manufacturing/etc dictate. Customers then buy new ones as often as they feel it useful.

That's how it has been with desktop computers, excluding Apple, forever. Few, if any, people upgrade every time something new comes out because the changes are usually minor. They buy something, stick with it for a few years, then buy something new when they feel like they want or need it.

The problem is that Apple devices seem to be something that some people wrap their ego in. They feel a need to have the newest device to be "cool" or some such and thus get mad when a newer device comes out that they cannot or do not wish to purchase since they feel it somehow lessens what they do have.

Samples sizes of 1

[radarskiy]

"tests of a pair of 6s Plus phones"

You can't argue with the statistical validity of that analysis... because there isn't any.

Re:in a previous article about the new chips.....

[UnknowingFool]

For the following post, the sarcasm flag is assumed to be active.

1. has to rely on 3rd parties to integrate their hardware into an existing enterprise..

Yes because Apple's primary focus is enterprise. It's not like Dell or HP ever rely on 3rd parties for consumer or enterprise. Ever.

2. Srir was a huge failure even with 3rd party support

That's why they removed and banished it from all iPhones and iPads and they didn't include it in the new AppleTV.

3. Newton (even with the greatest minds it still could nto get off the ground)

Yes because 20 years ago, mobile hardware was much superior than it is today. Also at the time, Apple was a tightly focused machine.

4. Deperciation of the equipment as compared to its "PC" equiv. is way out of whack.

That's why whenever I go to buy used Apple machines, they are 1/2 of what the comparable Dell or HP is. They are so cheap, people are begging me to take their Macs.

5. They have to reply on 3rd parties for any and all laptop/desktop hardware (intel)

Yes because Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Asus, etc have all started to make their own processors now. Every single one of them even have their own GPUs and make their machines by hand. I've seen the farms where they grow their cases from the soil. It's all organic.

6. they bastardized a variant of BSD and "made it their own" also a 3rd party reliance.

Instead of every other OS out there that magically one day was born. Linux isn't based on Unix at all. And Windows was created completely by Gates and Co one night and didn't rely on design cues from VMS or DOS or anything prior.

7. They tried to tout a turnkey infrastructure (X system [xserv, etc]) which lasted 2-4 years and resembled SUN equipment..

Because every time a company makes a product they should sell that product FOREVER even if it isn't very profitable or core to their strategy. That's why Microsoft and Dell still make MP3 players. IBM still makes PCs right?

8. the cost of the equiv. equipment (PC) is a 3rd of the cost.

In every single case this is true. That's why people still buy Macs; suckers!

9. For any credible attempt at repair, a device must be taken to a service center, no way to "HOME-FIX"

Yes, the internet and websites dedicated to fixing computers don't exist. Also all other manufacturers will honor your warranty when you try to fix things yourself. Warranty, schmwarranty, they say.

10. when people in my env. request a mac. after about a week or so they request a windows 7 vm poped on the "DESKTOP" so they can remain productive and still have the nice SHiny..

This has nothing to do with the fact that some companies rely and insist on Windows only things. I mean, IE is famous for being completely compatible with every other browser known in existence. This is the opposite of those PCs where they have only 1 option: Windows or die. That's fine. Less choice is so much better.

So now we are on the 6th gen of the Iphone, and.......... Samsung the #1 Iphone competitor is varying their production of chips to Apple, like thats a suprise.. It actually seems so friggin lame..

Yes because chip fabs are everywhere. You can't go down the street without some homeless bum offering to move me to a 10nm process. Especially companies like NVidia who didn't decide to use Samsung to fab the Tegra X1. And Apple didn't do a responsible thing by using 2 different fabs for redundancy. Not at all

With so Much Apple has going for itself.. Why can't it just produce their own products and why with all the brilliant pe