Nancy Cheng and Willie Teng report for DigiTimes, “Apple is reportedly looking to outsource the production of its A4 processor as well as the next-generation ARM Cortex-A9-based A5 processor to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), according to industry sources.”
“With Samsung now competing directly with Apple with its own smartphones and tablet PC, Apple is reportedly concerned about leakage of its processor technology to a major rival in the end-use market,” Cheng and Teng report. “According to Digitimes Research, the iPad 2 will support an enhanced version of the A4 and the A5 will power the iPhone 5. TSMC will initially produce the improved A4, and could likely become the exclusive manufacturer of the A5.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Isnt it a bit late to be locking down suppliers for a product that should be coming out in a little over a month?
I can already hear several annoyed whiners declaring how they will refuse to get the new iPad with the “old” technology, when the “new” technology is already available for the iPhone, deciding to wait for the iPad 3 with that “new” A5 chip…
There is no reason to increase performance that much on the iPhone 5. If any of this is true (that there will be an A4 and A5), then the iPad will get the dual-core next-gen A5, and the iPhone 5 gets a slightly better A4.
Seems more logical IMO.
This definitely makes more sense.
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It’s about time Apple took away those greedy bastards lollipop. Apple is giving them multi billion dollar contracts and they still want more $ so bad that they bite the hand that feeds them. Samsung should develop their own original ideas and Apple should look for a way to get their displays from other more ethical companies. It would be sweet to see samsung rewarded with less $ than they would have had if they hadn’t screwed Apple. Same goes for Google.
The iPhone is still the flagship product with the highest resolution camera and has twice the RAM of the current iPad, so it does stand to reason that it would be more powerful than the iPad even if it doesn’t seem logical to some.
i would definitely not be happy about TSMC being the producer here. They do not have a good rep. Both AMD and Nvidia have problems with their process. These problems have been going on for years. I don’t see Apple doing any better with them. If this is true, expect delays, and slow adoption of new process technologies.
One of these days Apple will make their own chips…
Why not fab it in the US and give a few peeps from the home team a job, Mr Jobs?
Is there a factory in the US capable of producing them on that scale? Texas Instruments maybe? (I don’t know if they fab in the US or not, just guessing). I guess one could be built, but then you’re talking about much higher costs in more than one facet.
“higher costs”
Maybe not…think dual usage of a facility by another company in exchange for constuction, outfitting, automation, robotics and multi use across product line…
Well that sounds backwards.
Who’s paying Nancy and Willie to try and drive down enthusiasm for the next version of the iPad?
Do we have any details regarding the A5?
Has Apple used TSMC before?
This has to be the stupidest rumor I’ve heard. Why would the iPhone get the more advanced chip and not the iPad?
Because the article’s written by a duo of astroturfers. Bog standard crapola. What news there is is buried beneath mile high sensationalism.
I agree that the iPad should get the latest chip technology.