“Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has confirmed that its 20nm wafer starts were delayed recently due to a specification issue of materials used in its CMP (chemical mechanical planarization) process,” Josephine Lien and Steve Shen report for DigiTimes. “The issue has been resolved, and no shipments will be delayed, said the wafer foundry house.”
“TSMC began volume production of its 20nm process node at the beginning of 2014, focusing on Apple’s A8 processors, according to industry sources,” Lien and Shen report. “The yield rate of the 20nm process has been ramped up significantly since then, reaching a level ahead of schedule, the sources noted.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ah, dueling reports out of Asia. Looks like we’ll have to wait and see if anybody can figure out who’s really stamping what and how much for whom.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
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Samsung cut out as TSMC starts stamping out Apple A8 chips for 4.7-inch iPhone 6, sources say – March 5, 2014
Samsung to stamp out 30-40% of Apple’s next-gen ‘A8′ chips, South Korean report claims – October 1, 2013
Yup, is it TSMC with samdung or TSMC flying solo, or each with a different chip?
Yes.
TSMC can have the high end chips and Samsung can take the older chip production so they don’t learn anything about the new designs.
It’s all above volume. If TMSC can be guaranteed to handle it then Samsung will lose the business.
So they have been building the A8 since the first of the year. Is this production earlier then prior years? I’m only speculating here, but it would seem early for the iPhone. Maybe the chips are slated for a new device.
PS – I had a dream a few nights ago and AAPL was going parabolic. Steve Jobs came in the dream and said, “Believe!”.
With two suppliers able to manufacture Apple’s A8 chips, Apple might decide to use those more powerful chips in additional products.
This is for CarPlay in the Audi A8.
/jk
Out of interest surely a chip for an iWatch would be rather different to chips used in the iPhone et al. Power requirements and die size would surely be smaller for a start.