Chips

Rumor: Taiwanese companies land Apple A8 packaging orders

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 27, 2014

An Apple-designed mobile processor for this year's iPads and iPhones will be probably labeled ’A8' and supply chain rumors have asserted that the world's top independent semiconductor foundry, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), will share orders with Samsung, whose multi-billion dollar Austin, Texas plant used to exclusively churn out Apple's A-series chips.

Like the A7, the A8 is said to use package-on-package design which combines the CPU part and mobile DRAM in a single package for increased performance and optimized power consumption...

Rumor: TSMC to start churning out Touch IDs for the next iPhone this summer

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 14, 2014

According to industry sources, Apple has seemingly commissioned Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to build Touch ID fingerprint sensors for a next-generation iPhone, dubbed by the press the iPhone 6.

The manufacture of the sensors should start in the second quarter of 2014 at TSMC's twelve-inch fab, using the company's 65-nanometer process, according to a report the Asian industry publication DigiTimes filed on Tuesday...

Mac Pro’s CPU upgradeability confirmed

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 3, 2014

Despite what some would call a steep asking price, Apple's desktop powerhouse - the new Mac Pro - has been universally regarded by reviewers as the dream machine for content creators who desperately wanted a reasonably priced monster workstation that would make real-time 4K video editing a reality. And despite scarce availability - online orders slipped to February and in-store availability is not expected before March - the new Mac Pro never ceases to amaze us.

Some power users have voiced their concern that Apple would, as is often its wont, lock down the system to allow only for memory upgrades. As it turns out, the new Mac Pro is one of Apple's most expandable Macs, if not the most expandable one.

A teardown analysis by iFixIt has revealed a socketed Intel CPU, accessible RAM and no proprietary Torx screws (go figure!), giving the workstation an eight out of ten for repairability.

Earlier in the week, Other World Computing (OWC) has confirmed that the Mac Pro's Intel Xeon E5 processor was socketed and removable. Today, the OWC team said it's successfully swapped the stock CPU with an eight-core Xeon E5–2667 V2 chip not offered as the Online Apple Store's built-to-order option...

Good news, tinkerers: Mac Pro’s CPU is removable

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 27, 2013

Quick, what's more painful than dropping anywhere between $3,000 to $20,000 on Apple's juicy new Mac Pro? Being unable to perform a DIY upgrade of the computer's main processor to a faster Intel chip down the road, of course! But worry not as a quick teardown has confirmed an upgradeable CPU so tinkerers and creative pros around the world can breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Other World Computing, a U.S. company which has been in the business of selling various after-market upgrades for Apple products since 1998, has tore apart the new Mac Pro to reveal a socketed Intel Xeon E5 chip, potentially allowing for future upgrades...

TSMC to account for bulk of 14nm Apple A9 chips in 2015, industry sources claim

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 18, 2013

After reporting that Apple supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will share next year's production of A8 chips with Samsung, the sometimes-reliable Taiwanese publication, DigiTimes, today said that the world's largest independent semiconductor foundry will account for more than half of total A9 chip output in 2015, with only one-third of chip manufacture to be handled by Samsung.

The South Korea-based Samsung up until this year used to exclusively produce Apple designed mobile processors for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices, but Apple's been looking to distance itself from the company in order to prevent Samsung engineers from getting an early glimpse into its upcoming chip tech...

Qualcomm employee: Apple’s 64-bit A7 chip ‘set off panic in the industry’

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

In October, Qualcomm’s chief marketing officer Anand Chandrasekher made headlines when he commented in an interview that Apple's new 64-bit A7 chip was just a 'marketing gimmick' that added 'zero benefit' for the customer.

Qualcomm was quick to backtrack on the executive's remarks, and according to a new report, that's not what it was thinking at all. Speaking with a source inside the company, Dan Lyons says Apple's 64-bit chip rocked the industry...

Actually, it was Samsung who sub-contracted GlobalFoundries to build Apple chips

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 12, 2013

Yesterday, the unconfirmed news broke out about a surprise tie-in between Apple and GlobalFoundries, the world's top semiconductor foundry second only to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) which counts Nvidia, Broadcom, Qualcomm and AMD as its clients.

The Albany Times Union newspaper asserted that GlobalFoundries will build Apple's A-series chips for iOS devices at a new $6 billion facility in upstate New York. The development has led some folks to conjure up that Apple could be finally ditching Samsung for semiconductor manufacture, but that's not really the case at all. Read on...

Apple may have partnered with GlobalFoundries on iDevice chip production

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 31, 2017

Milpitas, California-headquartered GlobalFoundries, one of the top semiconductor operations in the world, owns and runs cutting-edge multi-billion dollar production facilities all over the globe in places like Germany, Singapore and the United States.

Along with TSMC, GlobalFoundries gets frequently contracted to build various chips for such clients as AMD, Broadcom, Qualcomm and STMicroelectronics. And now, the company has apparently scored a major win, Apple, if a new report is anything to go by.

According to an unnamed source "close to the company" who spoke to the Times Union newspaper, GlobalFoundries may soon start building processors for iPhones, iPads and iPods at its new $6 billion Fab 8 facility in Malta, New York, just north of Albany...

Intel relents, will make third-party ARM mobile chips in 2014

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 30, 2013

In a surprise announcement that sent shockwaves throughout the technology industry, Intel said it will open kimono to arch-rival TSMC and begin making chips for third-parties, based on CPU blueprints from the British fabless semiconductor maker ARM Holdings, plc. Apple is among the licensees of ARM's technology for its own in-house chips which serve as the engine powering the iPhone, iPad and iPod devices.

This is a huge development. Not only will Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor company, now fabricate its own ARM-based 64-bit mobile chips starting next year, it will now undoubtedly compete for the lucrative Apple business, especially given the iPhone maker has long been looking to take its chip-making contract elsewhere...

New M7 details reveal outstanding power efficiency

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 30, 2013

Apple has made quite a noise about its brand new chip, the M7 motion coprocessor designed to offload taking sensor measurements from the iPhone 5s's main A7 processor. Because the M7 requires at least one-sixth of the power versus the 64-bit A7 chip, it can log data from the accelerometer, gyroscope and compass sensors independently of the A7 package, thus allowing for substantial power savings.

The details of how this data is captured and what power savings developers can count on were kept to Apple's chest until the Argus app made headlines as the first fitness software optimized for the M7 silicon. Here are a few previously unknown details about Apple's motion coprocessor hardware...

TSMC could account for bulk of A8 production

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 30, 2013

The sometimes-reliable Taiwanese publication, DigiTimes, has been saying for years that Apple was shifting its chip manufacture away from Samsung and towards its rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

In its new report Monday, the trade publication now claims that TSMC will be responsible for the bulk of orders for Apple's next-generation processor, the A8 chip, with Samsung taking care of about one-third of orders...

Inside Apple’s A7: dual-core CPU, quad-core GPU, Secure Enclave has 3MB SRAM

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 26, 2016

Following their initial analysis of the iPhone 5s's innards, silicon experts at Chipworks have now taken a closer look at the handset's 64-bit A7 processor to reveal a number of interesting tidbits in their initial low-level chip analysis. Based on transistor-level images of the Apple-designed, Samsung-built package, Chipworks was able to determine that the A7 consists of a dual-core processing core and quad-core graphics, tentatively identified as the four cluster version of Imagination Technologies’s PowerVR Series 6, the G6430.

Apple, along with Intel, is of course an investor with a ten percent stake in Imagination Technologies, the UK-based fabless semiconductor maker. Chipworks also focused on a portion of the A7 chip called Secure Enclave where Apple says fingerprint profile is stored securely and walled off from the entire system, except the Touch ID circuitry...