“Taiwan’s TSMC has started trial manufacturing of next generation A6 chips for Apple Inc., a source familiar with the matter said, in a sign that the iPad maker is shifting from its traditional chip supplier, Samsung Electronics,” Clare Jim and Argin Chang report for Reuters.
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“‘TSMC has got all the authorisation and details ready. Whether Apple puts in a formal order will depend on the yield rate,’ the source said… Any order for TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker, would be a blow to Samsung, which is the sole maker for Apple’s A5 chips, which are used in the hot-selling iPad 2,” Jim and Chang report.
MacDailyNews Take: You abuse, you lose.
Jim and Chang report, “TSMC is an obvious candidate to win processor business from Apple in the near term as it budgets $7.8 billion for capital expenditures this year to update technology and add capacity. It also has experience with ARM architecture, widely used by Apple to make power-efficient mobile chips.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
With ‘A6′ chip, Apple likely to move SoC production away from Samsung in 2012 – June 27, 2011
RUMOR: Apple inks deal with TSMC foundry for A5 processor; possible setback for Samsung – March 9, 2011
Karma is …
Boycott Samsung.
Screw Samsung, they”re evil
Buy TSMC and make the chips for yourself. Apple has that money sitting in a desk draw somewhere at this point. Better yet, build your own chip manufacturing facilities and be done with this. Soon, the hole iOS device will be in a small group of chips. Be done with this. Cut out the middle man while you cut out everyone else.
Why buy/found something thousands of miles away and then put up with the bureaucratic systems of that/those countries? This move may also inherit the ire of the greepeace, environmental agencies, worker’s environment and uninised pay schemes and so on and so on. Currently Apple can somewhat get away with Foxconn picking up a lot of the blames and headaches.
I’d say, Apple should enter into a multi year venture with Intel and bring the jobs back to the States. Intel needed to play ball the right way, but apparently they fell short of Taiwan’s offer. Next time, hopefully, they’ll hold their ego/greeds in check and offer Apple some trust/respect/sweets.
Finally, I think within half a decade, Apple will move on from designing a SoC to a full fledged chip designer and it won’t be atom nor ARM-based. Once that happens, the competition and their investments in these foundries will be left to eat dust. With near 1/2 trillion dollar cash/liquid assets in hand by then, that’d be my uneducated guess.
I am not sure that replicating over 20 years of ARM design expertise is quite that easy. After all with all its assets even Intel have woefully failed to do that.
Why replicate when you simply shift the playing field. That’s the true potential/strength of thin clients. I don’t know the particular answer, but I do recognise the current gap.
Most competition can license ARM now, but at some point, a certain company may find themselves comfortably big enough to leave the pack and their competition behind. Apple has the deep pocket now, and half a decade head start to ponder this option.
Between Samsung copying everything Apple does and the Korean court system making Apple pay for the location mistake, Apple should pull all business out of Korea.
Why don’t they go to Intel and have the chips made in the US? the US economy is on shaky ground and needs American companies to repatriate manufacturing back to the US.
Why would Apple do that? With bastard Obama in office, all he knows is printing money and spending it. He knows a squat about business environment for American company to bring jobs home.
If you mind is so open, then please identify anyone in the Federal Government during the GOP-dominated period from 2000 through 2008 did anything *successful* to “bring jobs home”?
Honestly, you sound like a whiny brat who wants to blame others because he is a wuss. If you want to bring jobs home, then go start a business and hire some people. Quit looking for someone else to solve everything.
… and what did you say when George Bush raided the US Treasury ..and then started 2 wars to cover it up ?
You are an idiot !
We are all idiots because we put u with these stupid Fu¢k$. I mean what in the hell are the people of Mass. thinkingwhen they vote in an idiot lie Barney Franks. Are they lodging a protest vote? Cnnecticut votes in Dodd for 30 years!! WTF. These guys almost single handledly let the banking and investment community run amok.
So….we are the idiots. I chose Democrats to pick on. But, the Republicans are no better.
… that it was McCain and a bunch of Republicans who gutted the Banking and Investment strictures. I even recall that McCain went so far as to apologize, the FIRST round of disasters resulting from that.
Not saying the Democrats are saints or geniuses, just that the worse of the Bad Guys/Idiots are on the other side of the aisle.
Oh … and I intend to vote for Barney again, if he runs again. Unlike so many others – on both sides of the aisle – in Congress, he seems to be both well informed (unlike Michelle) and honest (unlike Boner).
Barney Franks – Chair of the House Financial Services Committee 2007–2011
Chris Dodd – Chair of Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs 2007–2011
While I talked about bastard Obama, you didn’t refute my statement. Yet you change the topic to about an incompetent Bush, so typical of liberal fool. An incompetent Bush does not abolish the bastardizes of an Obama.
There is no need to “refute” idiocy. It tends to be self-correcting over time – intellectual Darwinism. Please go play with something highly personally dangerous.