Items tagged with TSMC
Today, Apple unveiled the upcoming iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, ending months of speculation over whether or not the company would ever move to larger screens or higher PPI. The answer, it turns out, is yes -- the iPhone 6 will pack a 4.7-inch screen while the iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch screen. Resolution on the iPhone 6 is...
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Intel's 14nm Broadwell Production Throws Down Gauntlet For Major Semiconductor Competitors In Mobile
If Intel's recent 14nm Broadwell Y unveil has made anything clear, it's that the company is now determined to go toe-to-toe with every foundry manufacturer at the 14nm node. It wasn't initially clear if this would be the case. While Intel made a big splash with its first 14nm announcements, news of the delays and a...
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Perhaps the breakup between Apple and Samsung on the manufacturing side won't last all that long, after all. It was recently reported that Apple was reducing its reliance on Samsung by giving coveted chip orders to TSMC for its upcoming iPhone 6 and other mobile devices, but now there are mumblings in the media that...
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Don't read too much into Apple's working relationship with rival Samsung over the past several years, it's just business. Though these two companies are about as friendly with each other as the Montague and Capulet clans, it benefited both parties to have Samsung supply the custom processors used in Apple's highly...
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AMD's next-generation Radeon is set to debut later this fall and rumors about the upcoming chip have begun to leak out into the wild. While unconfirmed, the specs are in line with our expectations and what AMD has previously said about the chip. Hawaii won't be a fundamentally new architecture, but a refined approach...
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One of the greatest obstacles standing between chip manufacturers and the pursuit of smaller, faster, processors is the lack of a proper light source. Current chips are etched using a deep ultraviolet wavelength of 193nm, but at a 28nm semiconductor process geometry, we've reached the limits of what a 193nm wavelength...
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Late last month, the Wall Street Journal leaked news of a partnership with TSMC, in an agreement that put a formal signature on what sources have previously implied was years of behind-the-scenes collaboration. Apple has explored its options with foundry partners that aren't Samsung for several years as its...
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If you thought today's mobile devices were fast, wait until you see what ARM has up its sleeve for next year. Chip makers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and GlobalFoundries have both let it be known that they're planning to build 3GHz ARM processor sometime in 2014, which will inevitably end up in...
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When news broke earlier this week that Apple had finally inked a deal with TSMC to produce processors with the company beginning in 2014, the first round of chatter was on what this might mean for Samsung. Apple, after all, has been by far Samsung's single largest customer. With that topic out of the way, talk has...
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Last week, we paid a visit to ARM's headquarters in Cambridge, England and sat down with the company for multiple deep dives into its structure, processor architecture, and the future of its product design. The semiconductor market for mobile and hand-held devices has changed dramatically in the past six years and ARM has had to evolve alongside...
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Last week, we paid a visit to ARM's headquarters in Cambridge, England and sat down with the company for multiple deep dives into its structure, processor architecture, and the future of its product design. The semiconductor market for mobile and hand-held devices has changed dramatically in the past six years and ARM has had to evolve along...
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So long, Samsung, and thanks for the chips. That's the message Apple effectively sent its rival in the mobile space after inking a deal with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to build and supply the complex processors found in its iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. The impending breakup with Samsung...
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The big news of the day, based on a leaked Intel roadmap, is that Broadwell won't launch in 2014. Instead, we'll see a Haswell refresh with unknown performance characteristics (slightly higher clocks are the best bet) and, late in the year, a "Haswell-E" server part on the X99 chipset. Ivy Bridge-E, the six-core...
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It's been obvious for weeks that Intel's earnings call this afternoon wasn't going to have much good news in it. With total PC shipments falling 13% quarter-on-quarter -- the worst decline in nearly 20 years -- there was no way Intel would escape being hit by that drop. Today, Santa Clara reported that its Q1 profits...
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The divorce between Apple and Samsung was written on the wall when the former first attacked the latter with a lawsuit, but the actual split has been gradual. Apple has relied heavily on Samsung components for its displays and mobile processors, but as we’ve heard a few times before, Samsung is not participating...
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Eager for a bit of microprocessor news from someone other than AMD and Intel? Get ready, because ARM and TSMC are today announcing the first tape-out of an ARM Cortex-A57 processor on FinFET process technology. The Cortex-A57 processor is ARM's highest performing processor, designed to further extend the capabilities...
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The last thing Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) needs right now is to have to deal with continued supplier issues as the year reboots. It's been a tumultuous year for the Sunnyvale chip designer, and to ensure things on the supply side run smoothly, AMD has reportedly tapped Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to build its upcoming...
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The rift between Apple and Samsung continues to widen with reports that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will take over A6X chip production, at least on a trial basis. Samsung had been producing the A6X parts found in fourth generation iPad devices, but with ongoing legal disputes over patents, Apple is eager to sever ties...
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Normally, we cover conference and earnings calls from major companies by hewing pretty strictly to the number and discussing factors that directly relate to them. Today, we're going to break with that format a bit, and examine what Intel's Q3 earnings tell us about the larger PC market, what to expect from AMD when its own conference call...
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It's been proven time and time again that Apple and Samsung are not on the best of terms, but despite that, Apple has still relied on Samsung for certain production up to this point. That Apple A6 under the hood of the latest iPhone (which we reviewed here)? It's built by Samsung, using its High-K Metal Gate...
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AMD is launching its first tablet-optimized APU today, in a bid to challenge Intel's de facto dominance of the Windows 8 tablet market. Dubbed Hondo, the new Z-60 draws less power than any Brazos-based part AMD has launched before. Some of you may remember that AMD launched a tablet processor last year, but the Z-01...
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Last month, TSMC's CEO Morris Chang made waves when he suggested that it could make sense for the company to dedicate fabs to particular customers. Fresh reports today, however, suggest that both Apple and TSMC made major bids for exclusivity on future TSMC production facilities, and both were rejected. Does this mean Chang's earlier comments...
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