Developer Steven Troughton-Smith has discovered a possible code-name for a set of high-performance CPU cores to be found inside Apple's in-house designed “A11” system-on-a-chip that will power iPhone X and iPhone 8/Plus: “Mistral”.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the sole supplier of Apple's new A11 processor, recently kicked off mass production of the upcoming chip and last week leak aggregator SlashLeaks posted a pair of blurry images claiming to depict the new processor.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has commenced production of Apple-designed A11 chips for upcoming iPhones and iPads.
According to a report Thursday from Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes, the semiconductor foundry has successfully resolved initial manufacturing issues in the company's ten-nanometer FinFET process technology.
“TSMC has begun 10nm chip production for Apple's next-generation iPhone 8 series,” sources told the publication. “Production was once affected by issues involving stacking components in the backend integrated fan-out packaging process, but they have already been solved.”
TSMC is Apple's exclusive manufacturer of the in-house designed 16-nanometer A10 Fusion chip for the iPhone 7 series. TSMC's new ten-nanometer process should yield smaller chips that run faster and consume less energy.
TSMC has also secured 12-nanometer chip orders (a smaller version of its 16nm technology) from Nvidia, MediaTek, Silicon Motion Technology and HiSilicon. As for TSMC's 10nm process, the node technology has obtained orders from Apple, MediaTek and HiSilicon, as per sources.
Quarterly chip demand for iPhone is predicted to surpass 50 million units in the second half of this year as Apple begins to stockpile next-generation processors and other chips for 2017 iPhones, trade publication DigiTimes said Wednesday. Chip orders should hit a total of between 220 million and 230 million units between the end of the second quarter and the beginning of the third. This implies strong projected demand for the OLED-based iPhone 8 and the iterative LCD-based iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus updates.
Apple's favorite chip foundry, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), is about to kick off volume production of a new Apple-designed A11 chip widely expected to serve as the engine for new iOS devices this year, including an all-new iPhone 8 with an OLED display and the iterative iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus with LCD screens.
Semiconductor foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is kicking off commercial shipments of chips built on its new ten-nanometer process technology, ahead of iPhone 8, sources told Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes. TSMC is building iPhone 7's A10 Fusion chip and is said to have landed an exclusive contract to manufacture processors for 2017 iPhone and iPad models.
Both in-house designed 'A10' and 'A11' chips for this year's iPhone 7 and 2017 iPhones/iPads, respectively, are believed to be manufactured solely by Taiwan's semiconductor foundry TSMC (sorry, Samsung).
According to Nikkei Asian Review, Intel is now perfectly poised to give TSMC a good run for its money in as little as two years because any Apple chips after the A10/A11 should be fabricated by Intel.
The recently signed licensing deal between Intel and UK-based ARM Holdings lets the former fabricate chips for smartphones based on the latter's CPU technology.
TSMC is believed to have secured orders for an Apple-designed 'A11' system-on-a-chip expected to power so-called Tenth Anniversary iPhone and new iPads in 2017, trade publication DigiTimes reports. The chip should be fabricated on TSMC's ten-nanometer process technology and use its backend integrated fan-out (InFO) wafer-level packaging technology. Additionally, TSMC should build Apple-designed circuitry to drive 2017 iPhone's AMOLED panel.
Taiwanese component makers are currently scrambling to fulfill orders as the Cupertino firm is getting ready to kick off production of this year's upcoming iPhones and iPads.
Moreover, Apple's engineers should now be close to completing work on a 2017 iPhone and have certainly been developing a 2018 iPhone for some time now.
Trade publication DigiTimes wrote in a new report that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC), a foundry that builds chips for Apple, has now taped out an Apple-designed 'A11' chip that will power 2017 iPhones and iPads.