Next-Gen iPhone & iPhone Nano Speculation
- Thread starter Arun
- Start date
Pfft. You don't really think that that will stop Apple litigating do you?
Sadly, no, Apple starts to be almost as bad patent troll as Rambus thanks to US patent office granting ridiculous patents regardless of prior art, and courts ignoring prior art as well.
ltcommander.data
Regular
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20130624PD207.html
Digitimes is now officially reporting that Apple and TSMC have reached an agreement to produce chips on TSMC's 20nm, 16nm, and 10nm processes. Or at least as official as you can be when the parties involved refuse to comment. TSMC is reportedly installing new equipment to dedicate initially 6000 wafers then ramping to 50,000 wafers to Apple. They expect the first TSMC chip to be a 20nm A8 in 2014.
Digitimes is now officially reporting that Apple and TSMC have reached an agreement to produce chips on TSMC's 20nm, 16nm, and 10nm processes. Or at least as official as you can be when the parties involved refuse to comment. TSMC is reportedly installing new equipment to dedicate initially 6000 wafers then ramping to 50,000 wafers to Apple. They expect the first TSMC chip to be a 20nm A8 in 2014.
Not publicly. This is the first official confirmation I'm aware of.
Waiting for 20nm makes sense. It'd cost more to port their current Samsung 32nm (and maybe 28nm) designs to TSMC 28nm now followed by a shrink to TSMC 20nm later. They may also be waiting out contracts with Samsung.
Is it really official? Digitimes claims have to be taken with care and as usual they only cite "industry sources".
Good point. Instead of official meaning publicly announced (which frankly I don't see why Apple of all people would ever do) take it to mean having entered actual contracts/work orders, ie an official relationship between the two parties. This is of course contingent on the report actually being true.
If you're waiting for a real confirmation that probably won't happen until the chips are out and put under the microscope.
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/06/24/apples-prototype-iphone-5s-based-on-new-a7-chip/
"Another item of interest on the main chip is a K1A0062 identifier. We spoke with Dick James and Jim Morrison of chip teardown firm Chipworks, and they pointed out that in previous chips this number has typically started with an "N" and referred to a Samsung part number on the die. They wonder whether this new "K" identifier could indicate that the chip is being made by TSMC instead of Samsung."
"Another item of interest on the main chip is a K1A0062 identifier. We spoke with Dick James and Jim Morrison of chip teardown firm Chipworks, and they pointed out that in previous chips this number has typically started with an "N" and referred to a Samsung part number on the die. They wonder whether this new "K" identifier could indicate that the chip is being made by TSMC instead of Samsung."
I think Apple will be doing 28nm at both TSMC and Samsung. It is a safer bet and they could test out all the tools, problems and quirks working with TSMC before 100% moving to them. And they get a backup of capacity from the comparatively familiar 28nm Samsung Fabs.
Because of that, my guess is the next SoC from Apple will properly just be a faster CPU clock speed of A6X die shrink with 2GB LPDDR3 Memory.
If the leaked photos are real then its unlikely to be a die shrink. The model number suggests its a real jump from A6 rather than incremental upgrade. I think quad-core is still a waste of die space so probably Rogue and faster CPU, im not sure if iPhone needs 2GB of RAM though
I can see in the iPhone5S (if that's what they'll call it) a quad Swift2 at 1.5GHz and a G6200 clocked at 1/3rd the CPU, for which in all likeliness I'll end up wrong again
The thing is those are very early samples. Macbook Air is already using LPDDR3, so it make sense for iPhone 5s to use it as well. 2GB of LPDDR3 should uses just a little more power compared to LPDDR2.
I too think Quad Core is a waste of die space. But spending the time to work on Rogue with Samsung Fabs just doesn't make sense. When you know you are ultimately going to go TSMC way.
But who knows. Knowing Samsung's background and history i wouldn't trust them at all. But Apple may have a different perspective.
Given that they're buying the baseband from Qualcomm, I wonder if they would ever entertain buying the SOC from them.
Of course there is the question of whether Qualcomm could deliver the volume of SOCs Apple would require, in addition to producing for their other customers.
If Snapdragons can be used profitably on other high end devices, the pricing must be at least comparable to what the proprietary SOC costs Apple.
Of course there is the question of whether Qualcomm could deliver the volume of SOCs Apple would require, in addition to producing for their other customers.
If Snapdragons can be used profitably on other high end devices, the pricing must be at least comparable to what the proprietary SOC costs Apple.
After spending all that money to gain the ability to make custom SoCs with custom CPUs they'd have to have a pretty damn good reason to start buying third party ones.. Don't you think there's a reason they went this path in the first place? Of course the pricing won't be comparable, unless Qualcomm's margins are zero (and they make an SoC is perfectly optimized for Apple's needs and no more)
anexanhume
Veteran
Volume wouldn't be a problem if Apple was planning on sourcing from TSMC anyway. Not that I think they'll go that route.
I'm just saying that if one SOC maker becomes dominant, it could be like the PowerPC vs. Intel scenario.
Apple stuck with PowerPC for years but Motorola and IBM couldn't keep up and Apple had to look elsewhere. It just seems these days, Qualcomm seems ubiquitous.
Could be even more compelling if the SOC and the modem was integrated and delivered better price/performance than Apple rolling their own SOC and buying Qualcomm's modem.
Also, regarding quadcore, does it make more sense with the new multitasking model in iOS7? Or at least more RAM should make sense.
Apple stuck with PowerPC for years but Motorola and IBM couldn't keep up and Apple had to look elsewhere. It just seems these days, Qualcomm seems ubiquitous.
Could be even more compelling if the SOC and the modem was integrated and delivered better price/performance than Apple rolling their own SOC and buying Qualcomm's modem.
Also, regarding quadcore, does it make more sense with the new multitasking model in iOS7? Or at least more RAM should make sense.
Well, "multi-tasking" on a mobile phone is never about doing heavy workloads in the background. You don't really want to do any non-essential workloads in the background, unless you want a dead battery in very short time. So, to make quad-core useful, you still need to have apps which utilize it while running foreground.
I think we need to have a system based "battery eater" benchmark, which can show statistics about how much power an app used (just like how much CPU time a process used), especially after apps are allowed to run freely in the background.
ltcommander.data
Regular
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324682204578513882349940500.html
http://www.icinsights.com/news/bulletins/Qualcomm-And-Samsung-Pass-AMD-In-MPU-Ranking/
For reference, 83% of Samsung's microprocessor business was with Apple in 2012.
So it's official. TSMC is confirming they are going to start making chips for Apple in 2014.
http://www.icinsights.com/news/bulletins/Qualcomm-And-Samsung-Pass-AMD-In-MPU-Ranking/
For reference, 83% of Samsung's microprocessor business was with Apple in 2012.
Have to also wonder if the WWDC announcements make the move to PowerVR Series 6 this year more likely.
iOS7 UI seems to perform fine on iPhone 5 but does the official controller support (which they should have done years ago) signal that Apple is looking to stimulate the development of more "console-like" games for iOS?
Besides controller support, continuing to push leading-edge GPU cores would be another signal.
iOS7 UI seems to perform fine on iPhone 5 but does the official controller support (which they should have done years ago) signal that Apple is looking to stimulate the development of more "console-like" games for iOS?
Besides controller support, continuing to push leading-edge GPU cores would be another signal.
ltcommander.data
Regular
Another move to toward more directly competing with consoles is to introduce AirPlay Direct which was speculated a bit last year. AirPlay right now requires an existing WiFi network having to hop past a router which introduces latency. AirDrop works by peer-to-peer WiFi and requires the BCM4334 which is only on the iPhone 5, 5th gen iPod Touch, iPad Mini, and iPad 4 and is why it's limited to those devices. Conveniently, besides the different A5, the other big change in that silent 3rd gen Apple TV update earlier this year was to incorporate the BCM4334 so the hardware base is now set for an AirPlay Direct introduction. With Rogue offering current-gen console class performance, official controller support, and low latency wireless display output Apple can push to blur the line between mobile small screen and living room big screen gaming.