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Apple's A8 Chip Production for iPhone 6 Underway at TSMC

Wednesday March 5, 2014 8:43 am PST by Eric Slivka
tsmc_logo_newApple's new chip partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has begun production on the next-generation A8 chip destined for the iPhone 6 later this year, according to a report [Google Translate] from Taiwan's Commercial Times picked up by AFP.
The world's leading contract microchip maker last month started producing the A8 chip, which is tipped to power the expected iPhone 6, the Commercial Times reported.

The report, which cited supply chain sources, said TSMC had won most of the manufacturing orders for logic and power management integrated chips for the new handset.
The report claims that the new 20-nanometer A8 will include a quad-core 64-bit processor and quad-core graphics, and that an earlier start to chip production compared to the previous years could give Apple the flexibility to comfortably launch the new iPhone in the third quarter of this year.

Samsung has been Apple's exclusive manufacturing partner for A-series chips, but Apple has long been reported to be trying to shift orders to TSMC. After years of rumors, Apple and TSMC reportedly struck a deal in mid-2013 to begin chip production in early 2014. TSMC and Samsung were initially reported to be splitting the production load for the A8, but Samsung is now said to have dropped out due to low yields.

Tag: ctee.com.tw
[ 119 comments ]


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LagunaSol
65 months ago
Here's to a someday Samsung-free iPhone.
Rating: 27 Votes
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carjakester
65 months ago
Insert comment about logo
Rating: 20 Votes
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mcphee7
65 months ago
Just in time to replace my slow 5s :rolleyes:
Rating: 14 Votes
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fins831
65 months ago
TSMC could ask anyone on Reddit to create a better logo. Or a 2nd grader with photoshop
Rating: 14 Votes
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Taz Mangus
65 months ago

TSMC could ask anyone on Reddit to create a better logo. Or a 2nd grader with photoshop


Yes, because a company logo effects how well they build a product. Some people have too much time on their hands worrying about such trival matters.
Rating: 10 Votes
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ericinboston
65 months ago

As tired as we get of rationed, incremental and somewhat predictable change I've still got to say bring it on.


I agree (and I'm a techie). The issue I have with the iPhone (I have the 4S) is that from a customer point of view, there's not a lot of apps that require a new/newly architected CPU every 12 months. Not to mention that iOS/iPhone is still missing a lot of basic functionality that has nothing to do with CPU speed. Granted there *may* be something coming in the next iPhone 6 that might require a better CPU/performance than what the 5S has now, but that's a lot of architecture for 1 item.

Some of the basics that I was talking about that are missing after almost a decade of iPhone are:

-better/more parental/security areas...such as allowing me to view my pictures but disable the Trash button...or include some kind of black list for dirty websites (since Apple already bans all sorts of stuff in the App store)...or offer the ability to force the email system to ask me for the password every ______ hours/days/weeks/power cycles/whatever.

-better history/caching control of Safari...it's really weak that it can't remember what website I was at 10 days ago

-better/longer record of phone calls...I believe the max is 50 received calls and 50 dialed calls. Seriously? 16-64GB of storage and this is the best Apple can do?

-better Airplay integration...such as DIRECTLY to the other Airplay device and NOT over a network/router

-the ability to EASILY get my 1080 videos off the iPhone AND at 1080...ludicrous that I record at 1080 but when I push to Youtube it's 720 or worse...and that I must jump through all kinds of hoops to get the video off my iPhone and onto computer...it should be a simple feature in iTunes.

-the ability to send longer/better quality videos by email....Hotmail, Yahoo, Google, and others provide a 25MB attachment size limit while Apple is still holding onto its 5MB-is-the-largest-we-can-possibly-send-because-it's-1993 motto.

-the ability to store, locally, in some kind of folder my email attachments....PDFs, music, etc.

-I love the All Inboxes but why isn't there an All Sent box so I can easily see all the emails I've sent from my various email accounts?

-An editing feature of photos...so that if the iPhone accidentally mixes up the orientation of a photo (which it ALWAYS does when you take a photo looking straight down at the floor), you can just flip the orientation.



There are a lot of other small things that would make the iPhone/iOS so more awesome...most of these items would be quite trivial to add.
Rating: 10 Votes
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LagunaSol
65 months ago

TSMC could ask anyone on Reddit to create a better logo. Or a 2nd grader with photoshop


And while that 2nd grader is at it, here's a little side project:

Rating: 7 Votes
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vmachiel
65 months ago

Ya because we need 64-bit said nobody.


It makes sense to be there for the future. If mobile is to replace laptops with x86_64, 64-bit is a good place to start.
Rating: 7 Votes
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Vanilla35
65 months ago
Normally I'd be really excited to hear this. But then I realize that the only games I play on my iPhone are the ones that require you to wait 45 minutes to get more energy.
Rating: 6 Votes
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chrmjenkins
65 months ago
I doubt quad core. They made the A7 very wide in terms of execution paths to ostensibly avoid quad core.
Rating: 5 Votes

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