Apple snubs Samsung, looks to TSMC for next-gen iPhone and iPad chips

By on Sep 16, 2011 at 5:45 PM
mobile September 16, 2011

Apple will favor Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company over Samsung to power its next-generation iOS devices, DigiTimes said on Friday. The report aligns with an earlier Reuters report that suggested TSMC would build the next-generation A6 processor for future iPhone and iPad devices. TSMC will use its 20nm and 28nm technologies to create the new chips but may not begin supplying Apple with parts until next year. The Taiwan-based chip builder may have inked a deal to supply the successor to the A6 chip, too. Earlier reports suggested TSMC already started to test its first batch of A6 chipsets, which may offer dual or quad-core ARM-based architectures. Prior to its agreement with TSMC, Apple typically gave Samsung exclusive orders for its silicon. The move could be tied to multiple ongoing patent lawsuits with the South Korea-based electronics giant.

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  • IPwn

    Let’s go Apple, let’s go *clap, clap*

    • Anonymous

      Let’s not… Apple should stick with Sammy if they want what’s best for their customers..

      • Anonymous

        Problem is Samsung is openly copying their designs and competing with them directly, while giving Apples competitors crucial information like ship dates (former execs have admitted under oath).  Samsung is no longer a viable partner.

      • http://twitter.com/GRZLA Grizzly Atoms

        God forbid someone compete with them. You can claim that Samsung copied Apple, I can claim Apple copied LG. The bottom line is that Samsung makes great processors and Apple going to a different company for new chips spells disaster. Have fun being the early adopter on those new chips, I hope they don’t have overheating issues.

      • somedude0123

        Never mind Grizzly Atoms, he is just a turd who like to scour BGR each day to spread his hate. I’m real sure Apple was closely watching what shitty-ass LG had up it’s sleeve. And by the way plenty of companies manufacture great chips. It’s not as if Samsung has some strangehold on the market. Disappear already Grizzly.

      • Anonymous

        ., . I just got a 827.89$ iPad2 for only 101.17$ and my mom got a 14989.89$ HTV for only 253.93$, they are both coming tomorrow. I would be an idiot to ever pay full retail prîces at places like Walmart or Bestbuy. I sold a 37″ HTV to my boss for 500$ that I only paid 78.24$ for.
        I use ÉgoWin.com

      • Anonymous

        truee

  • Anonymous

    Bad decision…looks like history is going to repeat itself.

    • Anonymous

      Not much they can do long term against Windows 8 I’m afraid.  Samsung chips or not.

      • Anonymous

        You really think W8 is going to bring down iOS? Good luck with that.

      • Anonymous

        Different target customers.  Although my guess is if your on here, there is a good chance you fall in the Win 8 group.  Looks cool, nice to see MS innovating again.

    • Anonymous

      What bad decision? Which history is going to repeat itself?

      • http://twitter.com/GRZLA Grizzly Atoms

        You know that time when Steve Jobs was no longer at Apple and they didn’t do anything worth mentioning? How can you forget? A true fanboy knows their shit!

  • Anonymous

    Bye bye Samsung.

    • DaHarder

      Keep Dreaming!

      • Anonymous

        Agreed…Samsung is making some great phones these days.

  • http://JonaSyon.com Jona Sy

    No big deal. Samsung will just make up for the loss by releasing more Galaxy phones and tablets. o_O

    • Anonymous

      What you are ignoring is the investment Samsung made in order to quadruple the Apple orders. The problem with Sammy is that they are a very large and disparate company – the phone side is actually f***ing the chip side of the company. Why do you think that heads have already rolled in the phone division?

    • Anonymous

      Ya I’m sure that the samsung galaxy tablets and phones should make up the 7+ billion that apple pays Sammy a year.

  • Norhstar17

    The consensus is the Samsung chips are the best from what I understand. Is Apple making a major mistake here?

    • DaHarder

      Samsung’s Exynos has long proven to be one of the single most capable SoCs ever, and the next generation will undoubtedly be even more-so.

      If Apple feels they can do better without Samsung, then so be it, and good luck.

      • Anonymous

        Samsung aren’t pulling their designs off the shelf. They are building Apple’s chips to order. If Sammy used information obtained building Apple’s ARM chips to make that then they are in serious trouble. 

      • Anonymous

        Yea but they will run into unforeseen issues like they did when trying to shift displays to LG…

      • Anonymous

        @Celz Ya, unforeseen issues happen a lot with unreleased products.

      • Anonymous

        Except Apple doesn’t use Exynos. Apple’s A5 chip doesn’t share design with the Samsung chip. Having said that, Apple did a lot of work making their chips with Samsung and it’ll be a lot of effort moving everything to another company, including working around the IP issues.

      • DaHarder

        No one said that Apple was using the Exynos, only that comparatively speaking the Exynos appears to be a more capable SoC than than Apple’s A-Series at this point.

      • Anonymous

        @DaHarder

        “only that comparatively speaking the Exynos appears to be a more capable SoC than than Apple’s A-Series at this point.”

        Not really. Architecture-wise they are pretty similar except Exynos has a higher clockspeed. However A5′s GPU is still faster than Exynos’. Exynos does have faster GPU than anybody else other than Apple, but when was the last time you were thinking a faster GPU would really help an Android phone? When the faster clocked OMAPs arrive, there’ll be minimum difference between CPUs. Snapdragons suffer a bit, but 1.5Ghz ones should hold their own.

        Still the point being Apple is using their own chip and it doesn’t matter what else Samsung is making. Apple will make their chips with TSMC now and Exynos doesn’t really make it into equation here.

  • Retrofreak2

    Looks like Samsung are now officially out of the circle of trust lol

  • Anonymous

    Not a big deal for Apple, they were testing TMSC for months now and they obviously improved the yield rate or Apple wouldn’t have signed on with them. Apple uses the designs based on the Apple owned Intrinsity, who I assume no longer has Samsung as Customer for for high-speed, low power processor cores.

  • http://twitter.com/mbcls ask me

    funny how sheep call it “apple snubs samsung”.
    maybe it’ the other
    way around?  maybe samsung dumped apple cus samsung cant make cpu fast
    enough for their own phones?  like galaxy s2, S2 LTE, 5.3 Note, and
    galaxy 7.1/10.1 tab?
    to retaliate, apple try to block Samsung from selling their phones for some BS “you copying me!”.

    • Anonymous

      Go go gadget Tinfoil hat!

    • Anonymous

      Yep Sammy said take your billions somewhere else apple

    • Anonymous

      Uhhh… the Galaxy S2 is insanely fast. Fastest phone on the market currently – hands down. Do some research?

      They don’t make the processor in the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

    • Anonymous

      Yep, that is why Samsung had to play games with their quarterly statements to hide the losses from losing some of Apple”s business.  They did manage to pull out a slight profit this quarter though, as they had lost money the last two quarters, all the while giving investors downgraded outlooks.  Apple is still printing money with some of the best margins and profit in the business.

    • Anonymous

      Lol.Good luck with that.

  • dpeagle

    post jobs era.  mistake #1.

    • http://twitter.com/RicoBawse RicoBlack

      im pretty sure jobs had something to do with this. the decision was made before he step down.

    • Anonymous

      Cook has always been the supply chain guy. He is the onethat made Apple so profitable.

  • Apeco

    Great news for Samsung. They can finally unleash the Kraken from factory to kill the apple.

    • Anonymous

      Lol!! Now that’s too! Funny

  • Anonymous

    Apple snubbed Samsung. Samsung did not notice. They are too busy selling Galaxy SII.

    • Anonymous

      They make 3 or 4 iPhone Socs for every SII. Samsung actually knows that…

  • Anonymous

    But Samsung is sappose to be the only manufacturer on the planet and Apple was stupid to sue Samsung because Samsung could cut off their supplies!!??!! What’s going on!!!???!? Wasn’t Samsung sappose to be the ones doing the bitch slappin??? I don’t get it!!?!?!?!?  true story™©®

  • Drew

    Yeah, you lost me at “…sappose”. WTF are you saying?? None of that sh*t made sense…

    • Anonymous

      I think we just witnessed a newborn utter its first words on the internet

  • Anonymous

    I hope that isnt there response to win8 tablet/phones or QNX blackberries if so consider apple dead #thatisall

    • Anonymous

      My unreleased product can beat up your unreleased product!

    • Anonymous

      Would be like Apple responding to the never released slate back in 2010. They really do not care about competitors announcements of unreleased products.

  • Anonymous

    TSMC, I remember reading somewhere there chips over heated fast. Hope they fixed that. I would have gone with Samsung, they have the best CPUs when it comes to mobile ad the best displays.

  • Meh…

    The iPhone 4s/5/6/watevadfuk is melting in my hands…

    Steve Jobs, “Just avoid holding it in that way.”

  • Sheng-Chieh Su

    As a stockholder of TSMC. I couldn’t be happier!

  • Anonymous

    To bad that the rest of us have to pay, once again.

    Samsung had the capacity to build the Apple chips without it hurting others, TSMC doesn’t. As a result TSMC have decided to raise the price for other costumers, among them AMD and Nvidia, meaning that your future graphics chips and low cost APU have just gotten more expensive. 

    Damn you Apple!

    • Anonymous

      You make a lot of assumptions…

  • Jason Harvey

    Yes now samsung can focus on there phones an tabs :D

  • Anonymous

    Win 8 will do more damage to Android than Apple.  And blackberries are not going to threaten anyone as they die a slow death.

  • http://www.facebook.com/harleyhong Harlimus Prime

    i hope samsung and lg stop supplying crap to apple. i hope apple dies a fiery death

  • http://twitter.com/mbcls ask me

    atleast people don’t call Samsung a conspiracy! some say the fruit is a conspiracy. I wonder why no-one do a live survey on airports, shopping malls, or colleges. I bet you more people have android than a fruit!

  • Anonymous

    crApple needs to be careful, their going to burn one bridge too many.  I’ve worked in manufacturing a looong time and I an tell you people in the industry have long memories.  They may forgive but they don’t forget arrogance and rudeness.

  • Anom Anom

    And of course it couldn’t have been Samsung that told Apple to go and pound sand (given the lawsuits) forcing Apple to find another manufacturer after the current contract expired. Not saying that’s what happened, but the “article” clearly has a one sided (some would say Apple sided) view of how the mobile business world works.

    Get all of the facts that led to the decision and then write an actual story instead of a paragraph that leaves the comments section to fill in the blanks please.  I don’t care why Apple is going with TSMC, but supposed journalists should.  This kind of post, lets be honest that’s all this blurb actually is, is what is wrong with blog news sites in general.  No investigating at all, just “look at me and what i can say” stories.

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