“When Apple introduces their new version of the iPhone 6 in the weeks ahead, I expect them to take an extraordinary amount of time to position its 20nm A8 processor as significantly better than Intel’s 14nm Broadwell across the full range of its mobile product line,” Ed McKernan writes for Seeking Alpha. “Apple’s marketing and branding will hopefully have the effect of bringing Intel low in order to get future access to the leading edge process technology at much lower costs. Going forward Intel should consider ramping its new process technologies with Apple’s mobile processors at the same time it ramps its newest mobile chips.”
“Apple knows Intel is getting more aggressive on 14nm Broadwell with the intention of squeezing the iPad but the company has other plans that are more long reaching and intended to ultimately outflank Intel,” McKernan writes. ” Yes Mac Air with x86 is important but interoperability between iOS and OS X is more so and it will be interesting to see how it rolls out. In reality, Intel is in the uncomfortable position of waiting to see how Apple’s A8 will be positioned at its launch. It is a reactive moment, not proactive, as has been its history.”
“Many analysts today do not foresee a move by Apple into Intel’s fabs,” McKernan writes. “The PC and mobile markets are now a foundry game and the company has to decide whether to step in with both feet or be exposed to competition from Samsung and TSMC. The returns from being an Apple foundry are much higher than most believe as the former will seek to stretch its mobile processor lead.”
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> When Apple introduces their new version of the iPhone 6 in the weeks ahead…
NEW version of iPhone 6? There’s a current version of iPhone 6? 🙂
> I expect them to take an extraordinary amount of time to position its 20nm A8 processor as significantly better than Intel’s 14nm Broadwell…
I don’t expect Apple to do any such thing, not as a direct comparison between processors. As usual, Apple will “position” the new iPhone as a much better smartphone.
Why does Apple need to “market” the A8? It’s not like Apple is making the A8 processor available to competing device makers, to compete against Intel’s “Broadwell.”
Good points…
Agreed. What makes people think Apple is trying to undermine Intel in the chip industry? Apple went to its own processors to use in its own products because they felt it could give them an edge over rival product manufacturers and Apple could control everything from top to bottom.
I don’t see how this is an affront or challenge to Intel. Apple has its own products to supply and Intel can have all the rest of the much larger remaining mobile market. Industry pundits are simply trying to stir up controversy where none exists. We’ll never see the logo “A8 Inside.”
Apple isn’t the biggest corporation in the world for nothing… Intel makes a huge sum of money form them and stands to lose big time if Apple runs.
The A7 was compared to the Bay Trail, a low powered processor designed for mobile devices. Broadwell is the successor to Haswell, successor to Ivy Bridge, etc. Apple isn’t going after anyone’s market since they don’t sell their SoCs to other manufacturers. I expect the A8 will just be a continuation of the A7’s trajectory and not intrude on Intel’s laptop / desktop space.
Absolutely right, it doesn’t need to do that it will promote the capabilities of the new silicon but will allow others to make any comparisons, as indeed happened last year when in one sweep Intel’s long drawn out boasting of its as then yet to be available new mobile processors was made to look embarrassing when a sudden Apple launch matched or even exceeded its figures in a much more practical and efficient package months earlier.
Maybe it’s time for Apple to create it’s own foundry. Start making it’s own chips? They have the money to get the right people and the facility, maybe it’s getting to the point where others stop stealing from Apple, if they don’t have the schematics and plans, maybe it will be harder to reproduce and copy, no?
Not enough volume to tie up shareholder money in their own foundry. Samsung has it covered and offers Apple economies of scale advantages that Apple can not even com close to match. Apple is a small player in the overall tech space around the world. They are very profitable but not very important in terms of market share.
Um Apple is one if not the largess purchasers of custom silicon in the world, and the largest purchaser of flash memory almost every year. There have been complaints from others in the industry over Apple literally buying out supply of memory and chip foundry time so others have to scramble for whats left.
I think someone is exaggerating when it comes to Apple buying up most of the flash memory. They probably buy the most memory for a single company but I’m certain there must be more available. It appears to me as though there’s plenty of left-over memory considering all the Android smartphones that are out there. Besides, Droid users seem rather proud they can use those micro-SD cards instead of paying through the nose for fixed internal memory capacity.
No exaggerating, that’s been going on since the iPod days.
mechanic50 is correct. There have been many stories over the years regarding memory chip shortages due to Apples buying. Also, Apple is a single company. You cannot compare it to
“all the Android smartphones” which are made my a dozens of separate companies. Apple today is the big fish customer.
I respectfully disagree… They would be able to hide valuable trade secrets and fabrication methods from those thief’s.
Apple doesn’t build it’s own factories or foundries. It does invest in the equipment placed in sites owned by other companies. We don’t know the deal in place with TSMC but if financing was a bottleneck to App,e getting the parts they need they would solve that problem.
People with a modicum of knowledge of CPU will (incorrectly) decide that a 14nm chip is somehow better than a 20nm chip. It’s like saying a Ford Fiesta is better than a BMW because it’s smaller and has green paint.
Take any chip architecture and build the same chip at 20 nm and at 14nm. The 14nm chip will run faster, cooler, and use less power and take less space. It will also use less silicon, which saves cost. This is physics, not just a random opinion.
Ok, if you take a great design and build it at 20nm it could, in theory, be better than a bad design at 14 nm. That could be true.
Well not could be it IS true. The design of the chip is equally important to the process size probably more. As you say its only when all things are equal that the effect is felt though even then as Intel has found in the past the same relative design produced by the smaller process can in fact lead to other inefficiencies as a result of that change. That too is a matter of physics that design and engineering has to take into consideration to gain the full benefit.
Apple will never buy or build its own fab. It would be a distraction from their main line of business which is building great phones and other electronics. Apple also would not be able to fully utilize the very-expensive fabs. Picture the peak demand for chips as Apple releases a new product. They would have to build a huge, extremely expensive fab to meet this demand. Then as the product cycle matures, they would need fewer chips and the fab, with it’s huge investment, would be underutilized. That is just one reason why they outsource all production — to meet peak volumes without building over-sized factories.
Another reason Apple will never buy it’s own fab: technology risk. If somebody, anywhere in the world, finds a better technology, Apple can stop buying from their current supplier and buy the new, improved product. If Apple sinks Billions in to a fab of their own and someone comes up with a new, improved product, then what do they do with their no-longer-the-best chip fab? Sell it to Samsung? That’s why they design their own chips and then have someone else produce them.
From what I know, Apple assists with the purchase of fabrication technologies for large percentages of uptime diminishing over the product maturation cycle. Apple re-assists with the purchase of newer fabrication technologies for it’s newer products. This way Apple does not have too much invested in outdated products and can still have the newest tech available.