TSMC to be sole manufacturer of Apple A10 processor dealing blow to beleaguered Samsung
“According to a report from South Korean news outlet The Electronic Times, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, better known as TSMC, has reached a deal with Apple to be the sole provider of the processor used in the next-generation iPhone,” Chance Miller reports for 9to5Mac. “TSMC and Samsung shared the task of building the processors for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.”
“The report claims that TSMC edged out Samsung to win the job thanks to its 10-nanometer manufacturing technology,” Miller reports.
“TSMC is expected to go into full production of the next-generation chip, likely called the A10, sometime in June,” Miller reports. “The iPhone 7 is expected to be announced sometime in September.”
Shackled to Android, Samsung has no point of differentiation. Apple will continue to take unit and the rest of the profit share from Samsung in the market segment in which they compete, and the bottom feeders will continue to take unit share as well. Tizen was Samsung’s only real hope, but they couldn’t manage to pull off such a large undertaking or, really, much of anything beyond mass producing inferior iPhone knockoffs. The world now sees: iPhone is the dream. If they have to settle for an Android phone until they can achieve iPhone, they can get the same thing Samsung offers at much lower prices from myriad Chinese Android handset assemblers (who are also knocking off Apple iPhones’ trade dress left and right).
Sooner or later, even Samsung will figure out there’s no profit to be had in Android handsets.
