Sam Oliver
The relationship between Apple and Samsung has moved from "love-hate" to simply "hate-hate," according to a new report, which indicates that Apple is doing all it can to cut ties with its fierce rival.
Though Apple still relies on Samsung for production of its mobile processors, the iPhone maker has apparently made it clear it will no longer use Samsung's technology, an unnamed senior official at the Korean electronics company said to The Korea Times. The report indicated that the relationship between Samsung and Apple is "now about to become one-dimensional."
"There are three types of chip clients," the Samsung source reportedly said. "Some want us to handle everything from chip design, architecture and manufacturing. Some want us to just design and manufacture. Some wants us to just make the chips. Apple is now the third type."
Samsung did reportedly earn more money for manufacturing the A6 processor for Apple's iPhone 5 than the company did from building earlier custom chips. But at the moment, Samsung is said to be the only semiconductor manufacturer in the world that can meet Apple's needs for high volume of chip production in a short period of time.
Apple did not collaborate with Samsung in the development of the A6 processor found in the iPhone 5. While Apple collaborated with Samsung in designing its earlier processors, the new A6 chip marks the first time Apple designed its own ARMv7 core.
The details come soon after Apple was revealed to have hired away former Samsung chip designer Jim Mergard. Prior to his brief stint at Samsung, Mergard designed and developed chips for Advanced Micro Devices for 16 years.
Another report last week also reiterated claims that Apple plans to have future chips built by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., taking away a key component from Samsung. It was said that TSMC could build quad-core 20-nanometer chips for Apple by as early as next year.
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
87 Comments
[quote name="AppleInsider" url="/t/153382/apple-gets-serious-about-moving-chip-production-away-from-samsung-report#post_2211631"]The relationship between Apple and Samsung has moved from "love-hate" to simply "hate-hate," according to a new report, which indicates that Apple is doing all it can to cut ties with its fierce rival.[/quote] So Samsung's blatant copying of Apple's designs cost them $1 B in fines and $10 B in lost business. While they are picking up lots of cell phone business, much of it is at relatively low margins. More importantly, they could have picked up most of that business by coming up with their own designs that were merely inspired by the iPhone rather than a blatant copy.
I am curious ... is it possible for the design to be reverse engineered by Samsung with the third type of client?
Apple have a huge problem. They are to big. Apple needs about 30K wafers starts per month. This is rapidly growing to about 55K wafers starts in 2014-15. Apple needs a whole foundry by themselves. The best way is to buy an idle plant from Intel or that Apple pays TSMC a bunch of money for a whole line to them selves. Having an own high quality foundry would be a huge advantage for Apple. Especially since they will move everything to their own A class SoC. Todays A6 is as fast as the fastest intel per mhz. (and I know... Intel have 6 cores are clocked 3-4 times higher, so Intel is faster. But nothing stops Apple from designing quad or octo core A6 feed more power to make it 2.5ghz. Nvidia will introduce a 8 core ARM late this year/q1 next year)
I am curious ... is it possible for the design to be reverse engineered by Samsung with the third type of client?
I'll bet that any Samsung division responsible for fabricating chips for Apple would rather side with their client than with their parent.
This cannot come soon enough. Given what I've observed with Samsung, I believe there is a 30% or greater chance the Samsung fabrication side of the business has shared confidential Apple CPU design info with their mobile team @ $10 billion/year, Apple business is the equivalent to 20 million smartphone sales ($10B / $500 per phone). It's a major hit to their overall business And wait until Apple enters the TV market. TVs are 25% of Samsung's business. The hurt for Samsung is just getting going