Samsung To Manufacture Apple’s A9 SoC Using 14 Nanometer Process – Report

Apple and Samsung, despite their bitter rivalry in the marketplace and tort courtrooms, seem destined to be joined at the hip in a somewhat dysfunctional but mutually codependent symbiotic relationship at the OEM end of things.

ZNet Korea reports that Samsung semiconductor division honcho and head of System LSI business Kim Ki-nam told a news conference at Samsung’s headquarters in Seoul this week that the Korean company is expected to begin producing application processors for clients including as Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD, using its 14-nanometre process around the end of the year.

Samsung is currently one of two contract suppliers (along with Taiwan’s TSMC) of Apple’s 20-nanometre process A8 system-on-chip (SoC) used in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and soon presumably in the second generation iPad Air and possibly a third-generation iPad mini as well.

ZNet says that out of the total volume of A8 chips, Samsung is producing around 30 percent, while TSMC is making 70 percent, according to “sources familiar with the matter,”
and already also ha contracted with Apple to produce the A8’s successor, tentatively named the A9, which will be made using the 14-nanometre process.

The report notes that Samsung projects that SoCs made using its 14-nanometre FinFet process will require 35 percent less electricity, have 20 percent more processing power, and take up 15 percent less space than their 20-nanometre counterparts, and that TSMC is expected to produce its next-generation chip using a 16-nanometre process.

For the full report, visit here:
http://zd.net/1CIc0bV