As best we know TSMC is the sole fabricator of Apple's A8 chips on 20nm process, but so far from what DigiTimes has been able to determine that is not the case for the upcoming A9 chips. TSMC plans to keep pricing the same as they move to 14nm process tech but both Samsung and GLOBALFOUNDRIES are in a position where they could decide to drop their pricing in order to win business. Qualcomm has already placed orders for its 14nm chips with TSMC and Samsung but it is possible that with the experience GLOBALFOUNDRIES has with the 14nm process thanks to business from AMD they may also be able to undercut TSMC's pricing, assuming their yields can stay up.
"Globalfoundries is striving to be among the major contract chipmakers of Qualcomm and Apple, vying for 14nm chip orders from the two vendors, according to industry sources."
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A couple questions
TSMC’s
A couple questions
TSMC’s 14nm?
GloFo has experience with 14nm? … thanks to what business from AMD at 14nm?
Did I missed something? Did I missed something huge?
GloFo teamed up with Samsung
GloFo teamed up with Samsung which gave them more insight and development towards 14nm FF. Samsung is already ongoing with the production of said process.
It’s nice to see Samsung getting more involved into fabrication development. And I sincerely hope AMD can also can take the fruits of this agreement.
GloFo got its 14nm from
GloFo got its 14nm from Samsung, who got assistance from IBM in creating that 14nm process. IBM is out of the commercial chip fabrication business except for its research fabs. IBM has been sharing its technology through its technology foundations for a few years now, and they have been planning on getting out of the commercial CPU fabrication business for some time.
Apple should always second source a supplier for all of its important fabrication needs. Samsung as well as Globalfoundries stand to get much business from the eventual licensed IP market built up around the power8 processor, that IBM through its OpenPower foundation will be licensing to others, namely the Power8 CPU designs, CAPI coherent interface designs, etc. IBM appears to want its supplies of fabricated server CPUs from a competitive market built up around the Power8/power8 designs that IBM will still be using in its in house server systems. Expect IBM’s, Samsung’s, and GF’s continued technology partnership to also benefit any other devices that may perform well with this shared fabrication process technology. IBM has been sharing much technological knowhow and any devices that can benefit from this withdrawal from the commercial fab business by IBM will be able to, if they utilize Samsung, or Globalfoundries. IBM is still investing heavily in the CPU microarchitectural development process, and the power9’s are on the way, to be used in supercomputers and servers, along with attached Nvidia Volta GPUs, so there will be much need for the fab capacity of more than one chip fabrication business.
The entire CPU/SOC/GPU market is going fabless, because that is the only way to produce enough economy of scale to pay for the massive costs of going to the smaller process nodes, expect there to be more IP licensed across the Independent fabrication industry, as the costs are shared among entire groups of CPU/SOC/GPU design firms. Server CPUs/SOCs are the next market to become commoditized, as the IP/ISA and CPU/SOC designs become licensable for all to use in their systems, just look at the mobile devices market, and see what the licensed IP market did in that industry. The economics of the licensed IP marketplace is just too good to pass up, and the old line companies will be pushed aside, if they can not make the transition. The more Licensable CPU/SOC/GPU designs the better.
ah ok – i was looking for
ah ok – i was looking for someone who had some decent info, AMD having 14nm just did not seem to fly
the rest of the analysis is sound as well both from the historical standpoint and from the view looking forwards
thanks
I should have been clearer on
I should have been clearer on that, AMD and Synopsys, along with GloFo and Samsung have been working on taping out 14nm for most of this year. Nothing released and as usual nothing hard about unreleased product but they are working on it, which is the experience I was hinting about.
2016 sir amd will RISE TO
2016 sir amd will RISE TO KICK INTEL OFF THE THRONE 😀 The guys designing zen are the same ones that gave us x86-64, the imc, and DDr. If it was not for amd we all would all be on ia64 with rambus memory.
Please take some parts of this with a pinch of salt 😀