CNET: Apple to move A6X production from Samsung to TSMC

[ShintaiDK]

IP for sure needs to be 5 years or less. In the medical business I think its already 5 years. IT should be same if not lower. Right now (if I aint mistaken) the patents on electronics covers 10 years.

And there should be a patent group that would be regulated and forced to license out. It can be compared to telcos that are forced to rent out network to competitors for a certain price.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Good point. Lawyers will now have to fight over what are reasonable fees :sneaky:

Dang, I'm in the wrong profession! Lawyers always get a piece of the pie :'(

It should be a government body or something similar. No lawyers involved.

 

[Ajay]

It should be a government body or something similar. No lawyers involved.

Well, that means expanding some department (patent office, FTC, etc.) and spending more gov't $$s - so that not going to happen anytime soon in the US. Maybe the UN should handle it, but they are even less efficient than the bureaucracy in the USA.

 

[Haserath]

US needs to cut costs... Not create more.

Getting off topic though so I'll leave it here.

 

[tviceman]

Charlie is saying TSMC's initial 20nm ramp up will go exclusively to Apple. https://semiaccurate.com/2012/12/06/nvidias-maxwell-process-choice/#.UOjxXW80V8E

Is TSMC that ballsy? Cut out Qualcomm, Nvidia, and AMD who have been TSMC's bleeding edge customers for years?

 

[Homeles]

Where else will they go for 20nm?

 

[Arachnotronic]

Charlie is saying TSMC's initial 20nm ramp up will go exclusively to Apple. https://semiaccurate.com/2012/12/06/nvidias-maxwell-process-choice/#.UOjxXW80V8E

Is TSMC that ballsy? Cut out Qualcomm, Nvidia, and AMD who have been TSMC's bleeding edge customers for years?

Well, if none of the other SoC vendors get 20nm, then that's Intel's chance to start selling nice shiny 22nm SoCs to phone vendors.

 

[Haserath]

Maybe Apple paid something for special treatment?

Wasn't 20nm supposed to be terrible anyway? Something like at least a 50% increase in price and half the improvement of a normal shrink?

I thought Nvidia was thinking about staying 28nm even for Maxwell with all their complaining.

 

[cbn]

Wasn't 20nm supposed to be terrible anyway? Something like at least a 50% increase in price and half the improvement of a normal shrink?

http://semimd.com/blog/2012/11/15/node-skipping-reaches-new-heights/

From the article:

40nm planar--> 28nm planar: 35% average increase in speed and a 40% power reduction

28nm planar-->20nm planar: 15% increase in speed and 20% less power.

32nm planar --> 22nm FinFET: 37% increase in speed and 50% less power.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Charlie is saying TSMC's initial 20nm ramp up will go exclusively to Apple. https://semiaccurate.com/2012/12/06/nvidias-maxwell-process-choice/#.UOjxXW80V8E

Is TSMC that ballsy? Cut out Qualcomm, Nvidia, and AMD who have been TSMC's bleeding edge customers for years?

As said, maybe Qualcomm, AMD and nVidia wasnt ready to pay extra for the privillige. This also turns back to the Atom part again, people think the CPU cost matters. It does for Qualcomm, but not for Samsung, HTC, LG, Huiwai, Apple, Motorola etc. They are more busy on the 400$ total phone profit for their highend models. Meaning if Apple had to pay twice the cost at TSMC (Something that would take maybe a few % of total profit) to get something thats better than others to sell more phones. They would happily do it.

 

[Homeles]

Maybe Apple paid something for special treatment?

Wasn't 20nm supposed to be terrible anyway? Something like at least a 50% increase in price and half the improvement of a normal shrink?

I thought Nvidia was thinking about staying 28nm even for Maxwell with all their complaining.

Not good for overclockers, as FinFETs (or at least Intel's FinFETs) aren't as good with higher-than-stock voltage. But that's only the really downside I'm aware of.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Not good for overclockers, as FinFETs (or at least Intel's FinFETs) aren't as good with higher-than-stock voltage. But that's only the really downside I'm aware of.

Got link to some information on that?

 

[Homeles]

Got link to some information on that?

Official source, no. But it is very, very likely to be the reason that Ivy Bridge doesn't clock as high as Sandy Bridge:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=33854382#post33854382
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2261855&page=13

And then we also have to remember where Intel's targets are with Haswell and Atom... it's the only logical conclusion.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Official source, no. But it is very, very likely to be the reason that Ivy Bridge doesn't clock as high as Sandy Bridge:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=33854382#post33854382
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2261855&page=13

And then we also have to remember where Intel's targets are with Haswell and Atom... it's the only logical conclusion.

Delidded IBs clock very well and some retails too. I think you confuse a mix of TIM, IHS height and thermal density with FinFETs. Plenty of 5Ghz+ IBs around.

Haswell and IB uses trasistors with different properties btw.

 

[gripenq7]

I don't know if this will turn out for Apple. In terms of chip manufacturing, Samsung is a leading company and quite good at it.

 

[Homeles]

No, I'm not confusing anything. I'm well aware that the TIM plays a substantial effect.

Haswell and IB uses trasistors with different properties btw.

Do you mean that Haswell uses different transistors than Ivy Bridge? That would only back up my argument further.

 

[Idontcare]

Charlie is saying TSMC's initial 20nm ramp up will go exclusively to Apple. https://semiaccurate.com/2012/12/06/nvidias-maxwell-process-choice/#.UOjxXW80V8E

Is TSMC that ballsy? Cut out Qualcomm, Nvidia, and AMD who have been TSMC's bleeding edge customers for years?

Its not about being "ballsy", this is SOP for every foundry that has ever existed.

Allocation of initial production wafers is a bidding process, no one gets screwed but someone will get out-bid.

If you are trying to buy something on ebay and you get out-bid, whose fault is it? The seller? The other dude that was willing to pay more than you were? Or yourself for having made the business decision that a higher pay-point would result in the purchased item not being economically viable for your business model?

If Apple has secured all initial 20nm wafer starts then it is only because they were willing to pay in ways that every other business was not. That is a business decision on their part, not on Apple's part nor on TSMC's part.

Maybe someday Unicef will get into the foundry business and they will ensure every fabless company gets an equal and unbiased wafer start allocation share on new nodes, until then it will just be business as usual in the foundry space (yes I know you know this, just having some sarcastic humor for humor sake )

 

[NTMBK]

If Apple are moving their (substantial) SoC custom away from Samsung on the 20nm node, that must surely mean there is suddenly a large supply surplus for Samsung's foundry. Could we see a traditional TSMC customer like NVidia or AMD go to Samsung on 20nm? (AMD dependent on GloFo exclusivity clauses, of course.)

 

[ShintaiDK]

If Apple are moving their (substantial) SoC custom away from Samsung on the 20nm node, that must surely mean there is suddenly a large supply surplus for Samsung's foundry. Could we see a traditional TSMC customer like NVidia or AMD go to Samsung on 20nm? (AMD dependent on GloFo exclusivity clauses, of course.)

Samsung is behind, not ahead.

 

[Ajay]

http://semimd.com/blog/2012/11/15/node-skipping-reaches-new-heights/

From the article:

40nm planar--> 28nm planar: 35% average increase in speed and a 40% power reduction

28nm planar-->20nm planar: 15% increase in speed and 20% less power.

32nm planar --> 22nm FinFET: 37% increase in speed and 50% less power.

Bummer for NV and AMD GPUs. I don't think TSMC is going FinFet till 16nm. I wonder if it makes sense for them to wait for 16nm In any case, having Apple & TSMC iron out all the problems of ramping 20nm could work out, especially, for process challenged Nvidia.

 

[Kenmitch]

Looks like in the end it may hurt consumers more than Samsung. If news rumors.are.true.Samsung looks to be delaying its new fab in Korea which estimated cost to finish 5 billion plus.

Fab once online was suppost to generate 80k 12" 20nm and 14nm wafers a month.

Maybe they can shift production to 8gb super ram sticks

 

[meloz]

Charlie is saying TSMC's initial 20nm ramp up will go exclusively to Apple. https://semiaccurate.com/2012/12/06/nvidias-maxwell-process-choice/#.UOjxXW80V8E

Is TSMC that ballsy? Cut out Qualcomm, Nvidia, and AMD who have been TSMC's bleeding edge customers for years?

If Apple are paying for 20 nm (either 'financing' it upfront by putting down huge cash, or as higher prices per wafer/chip) and others are not, I do not see why Qualcomm, AMD, nvidia et al have any reason to complain. Free market: foundry can set the price, and others can decide to pay or not pay that price.

If others are so unhappy, they can always find some other foundry partner.

Looks like in the end it may hurt consumers more than Samsung. If news rumors.are.true.Samsung looks to be delaying its new fab in Korea which estimated cost to finish 5 billion plus.

The second sentence suggests it will hurt Samsung more than consumers. Having a foundry on leading edge (let us exclude Intel, they are in their own universe) only makes sense if you have product(s) you can fab and sell in sufficient quantities.

This is the moment of truth for Samsung. Either they step up big time in foundry business, allocate even more resources to develop their own processors (not just mobile, but servers as well) and gain other business to keep their foundries busy, or they reconcile themselves to forever being a third-tier also-ran.

This also turns back to the Atom part again, people think the CPU cost matters. It does for Qualcomm, but not for Samsung, HTC, LG, Huiwai, Apple, Motorola etc. They are more busy on the 400$ total phone profit for their highend models.

This is extremely short-sighted and dangerous strategy for all these players building their smartphones around ARM SoC.

At the top end, Intel will swoop in and steal the high margin SoCs (they'll leave the scraps for ARM, as usual), and at the lower end Chinese ODMs/OEMs will be building budget smartgadgets around cheap 'obsolete' ARM SoCs that are 'good enough' for most consumers. Focus will more be on price points like $99, $149 and such, rather than absolute performance.

For what most people use their smartgadgets for, they don't need leading edge CPU or GPU performance. And those who need absolute best performance will get their fix from Apple or Intel Inside gadgets.

These days of high-margin ARM SoCs are not going to last, I assure you. These guys are living dangerously and are going to get slaughtered. No one believed Nokia would collapse into irrelevance as they have, we will eventually see something similar on the smartgadget side.

(I leave Apple out of this when I speak of "ARM" because their ARM is practically a whole different chip, and there's is a whole different business model. Like Intel, they are in their own universe.)

 

[tviceman]

Its not about being "ballsy", this is SOP for every foundry that has ever existed.

Allocation of initial production wafers is a bidding process, no one gets screwed but someone will get out-bid.

If you are trying to buy something on ebay and you get out-bid, whose fault is it? The seller? The other dude that was willing to pay more than you were? Or yourself for having made the business decision that a higher pay-point would result in the purchased item not being economically viable for your business model?

If Apple has secured all initial 20nm wafer starts then it is only because they were willing to pay in ways that every other business was not. That is a business decision on their part, not on Apple's part nor on TSMC's part.

Maybe someday Unicef will get into the foundry business and they will ensure every fabless company gets an equal and unbiased wafer start allocation share on new nodes, until then it will just be business as usual in the foundry space (yes I know you know this, just having some sarcastic humor for humor sake )

I had no idea that is was a bidding war. I thought wafers would have set prices.

 

[Idontcare]

I had no idea that is was a bidding war. I thought wafers would have set prices.

Its just standard supply vs demand stuff.

Wafers have set prices within a contractual agreement, but the contracted price itself is negotiated on a per-customer basis. When supply gets tight, allocations are instituted and customers have the option of paying a premium to buy what is left of a reserve capacity allotment.

Of course there is the equivalent of an msrp put on wafer pricing, but that is just a guideline to set expectations. Price varies on a quarterly basis as fab loadings go up and down every month.

 

[drozay]

I hate apple if only there was an OS as good as macs