TSMC gearing up for 'A11' chip production, likely for 'iPhone 7s' and 'iPhone 8' — report

Apple chip partner TSMC is said to begin volume production of the "A11" processor in April, with production of 50 million of the chips before July, according to a recent report.

The Chinese-language Economic Daily News reports that the "A11" chips soon to commence production will power a September iPhone, and will be built on a 10nm FinFET process. It isn't the company's first 10nm chip — it began volume production of other chips on the same process in the fall of 2016 and started shipping them to other customers in the first calendar quarter of 2017.

The schedule for production and delivery is about the same as for the iPhone 7. However, the company is expected to deliver 100 million "A11" chips before the end of 2017, slightly ahead of what was delivered by the end of 2017 for the A10 Fusion.

The iPhone 7 family utilizes the A10 Fusion quad-core system on a chip with two high performance cores, and two energy efficient cores. It was built with a 16nm process by TSMC.

The "A11" appears slated for the "iPhone 7s" or "iPhone 8." Apple's "iPhone 8" is expected to use a 5.8-inch edge-to-edge OLED panel which may or may not be curved, with a 5.1-inch practical area, the rest being dedicated to virtual buttons.

Other features rumored to be included in the device are a 3D facial scanner, and other sensors embedded in the front glass of the device.

15 Comments

MacPro 18 Years · 19845 comments

About 7 years ago

Apple should sync their chips, macOS, iOS, watchOS and TVOS to all have the same number the same year ... ;)

blastdoor 15 Years · 3594 comments

It sounds like the A10X is getting lost in the shuffle.

tmay 11 Years · 6456 comments

MacPro said:

Apple should sync their chips, macOS, iOS, watchOS and TVOS to all have the same number the same year ... ;)

I'm not sure that's a great idea.

All the regular copiers of Apple follow, and the consumer and the media will become confused. Can't have that.

dick applebaum 17 Years · 12525 comments

blastdoor said:

It sounds like the A10X is getting lost in the shuffle.

Yeah... I wonder about that, too. The natural for the A10X would have been an iPad Pro upgrade -- and possibly a upgrade to the AppleTV/Home server.

The fact that we've seen neither an A10X or iPad Pro upgrade (yet) makes me suspect that Apple will skip an A10X.

However, if the report of an April A11 startup is correct, and rumors of an imminent iPad Pro upgrade -- Apple could announce iPad Pros with an A11X for availability in April/May. Since the volume requirement for iPad Pros is relatively small, it could have little effect on availability of a September launch of A11 iPhones.

I suspect that an A11X iPad Pro would be competitive to laptops while offering the additional advantages of Touch/Pencil UI.

Also, I wonder if Apple will include the Intel modem radio on the A11 and A11X chips.

muthuk_vanalingam 8 Years · 1371 comments

dick applebaum said:

blastdoor said:

It sounds like the A10X is getting lost in the shuffle.

Yeah... I wonder about that, too. The natural for the A10X would have been an iPad Pro upgrade -- and possibly a upgrade to the AppleTV/Home server.

The fact that we've seen neither an A10X or iPad Pro upgrade (yet) makes me suspect that Apple will skip an A10X.

However, if the report of an April A11 startup is correct, and rumors of an imminent iPad Pro upgrade -- Apple could announce iPad Pros with an A11X for availability in April/May. Since the volume requirement for iPad Pros is relatively small, it could have little effect on availability of a September launch of A11 iPhones.

I suspect that an A11X iPad Pro would be competitive to laptops while offering the additional advantages of Touch/Pencil UI.

Also, I wonder if Apple will include the Intel modem radio on the A11 and A11X chips.

A11X (in Apr-2017) before A11 (in Sep-2017), all the while skipping the A10X naming convention? I don't think it would happen. Apple might skip the A10X altogether and keep both the iphone and ipad pro with same A11 for this year and Sep launch for both iphone and ipad pro (saves R&D cost for making a new chip, for what is essentially a low volume product in relative terms).
Other possibility is - as everyone thinks right now - iPad Pro in Apr-2017 with A10X. This allows for trial run on 10nm with smaller quantities for A10X and address the yield issues before mass production of A11 for iphone launch in Sep-2017