“Kim Ki-nam, president of the Korean electronic giant’s semiconductor business and head of System LSI business, told reporters at Samsung’s headquarters in Seoul that once the company begins to supply Apple with chips using its latest technology, profits ‘will improve positively,’ ZDNet reports. “Sources told ZDNet Korea that Samsung already has a contract in place with Apple to produce the A8’s successor, tentatively named the A9, which will be made using the 14-nanometre process.”
“The Suwon, Korea-based tech giant is one of the two contract makers, the other being Taiwan’s TSMC, for Apple’s A8 processor that goes into the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The A8 is currently being made using 20-nanometre processes,” ZDNet reports. “Out of the total volume of A8 chips, Samsung is producing around 30 percent, while TSMC is making 70 percent, sources familiar with the matter said.”
“Though Samsung remains the global leader in memory chips, its contract-making division, named System LSI Business, has reported huge losses this year due to lowered volume supplied to Apple,” ZDNet reports. “Apple has been steadily cutting ties with Samsung, one of its biggest suppliers of components in recent years. It cut off display supplies from Samsung back in 2012, and has turned to LG for the main batches.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hopefully, Apple will continue to reduce orders, eventually cutting Samsung out altogether.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “AlanAudio” for the heads up.]
If this isn’t incentive for Apple to further cut reliance on Samsung, I don’t know what is.
Lets pray (hope) that Samsung see nothing of the A9 and Apple leaves them all together.
Apple should embed some of their chip engineers at TSMC to help them get an edge, thus eliminating any reliance on Scamscum once and for all.
Baloney.
There is no proof that Samsung is producing any portion of the A8 supply. Do you really think, that if they did, an iPhone with a Samsung produced A8 would not found their way to one of those tear downs?
This is just another fantasy that WS is creating just to imply that Samsung will be privy to apple’s plans and given their propensity as imitators would keep android relevant. On some of the other logs, there is even a picture of a chip with A9 marking. Goebbels would be proud.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/09/23/samsung-still-reportedly-supplying-40-of-apple-a8-chips-for-iphone-6-6-plus
Apparently it was revealed in a CNBC re/code segment that Samsung is still producing 40% of the A8 chips.
That 40% figure was attributed to an analyst called Andrew Rassweiler. I haven’t seen any explanation of how he arrived at that figure.
Forgive my scepticism, but I’ve heard all sorts of nonsense from analysts and would want something more tangible than the opinion of an analyst in order to convince me.
If 40% of them are genuinely being made by Samsung, then they should have been positively identified within iPhones by now.
When it was announced that Apple were switching to a different CPU supplier, Samsung’s apologists insisted that Samsung will do just fine without Apple.
Now that Samsung’s chip division is running at a loss, even their executives are claiming that getting the Apple contract would improve positivity.
Maybe some people within Samsung have learned the reality of business without Apple as a customer ? Maybe in time they might learn that it’s good business practice to value a good customer.
I’m also intrigued that Samsung A8s have not yet been spotted in an iPhone 6. You’d think that if their alleged 30% of the production were true, some of them would have shown up, especially as people appear to be cracking iPhones open all over the internet.
They are probably only in the ones that bend. I spot a conspiracy.
Oh, the irony
Poor Samdung! LMBO
“MacDailyNews Take: Hopefully, Apple will continue to reduce orders, eventually cutting Samsung out altogether.”
Since Samsung has chip factory in Texas and TSMC not, it is not politically correct to exclude Samsung altogether. Also, to be dependent on single manufacturer is not good.
That’s a carpet I’d like to see pulled. Pricks.
i wish someone would write some code that would alert you if there was any samsung lurking in your equipment. Then automatically create a listing on eBay so you can dump it Asap.
Samsung will come to rue the day they crossed Apple!!!!!