Morris Chang, Chairman and CEO of the world's largest semiconductor foundry, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), said in a recent earnings call that his company's 20 nanometer process technology will outsell the existing 28 nanometer tech in its first two years. “Enough discussions have taken place, with enough customers who have large requirements (on 20nm), to lead us to believe that the volume will be very large”, he said without specifically mentioning Apple.

Of course, TSMC also makes chips for Qualcomm, Nvidia and other tech giants, but recently rumors have swirled that Apple is about to drop Samsung as a chip supplier and turn to TSMC, which will invest $9 billion this year while spending even more in capital expenditure in 2014 as it moves toward the more advanced 20nm and 16nm process technologies...