“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.
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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.
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