Neil Hughes
Rather than serving as an alternative to Samsung for production of Apples A-series chips, GlobalFoundries may just serve as a subcontractor for Samsung itself in producing chips for the iPhone and iPad, according to a new report.
Arik Hesseldahl of AllThingsD poured some cold water on the latest Apple silicon rumors on Tuesday when he revealed that Samsung is working on a deal that would have GlobalFoundries pick up additional work "on an as-needed basis." If the deal works out, Samsung would remain the sole provider of chips to Apple, and GlobalFoundries would simply handle "flex capacity" as a Samsung subcontractor.
"This is a long-standing industry practice under which a chip manufacturer pays to occasionally use another company's factories when demand on their own factory is running higher than they would like, and they need a little help," Hesseldahl explained.
The report refutes earlier speculation that GlobalFoundries would become a new chipmaking partner for Apple directly. That led some to believe that the company's New York-based operations would compete with Samsung and enter into Apple's supply chain.
To date, Samsung has been the sole supplier of A-series chips for Apple's iPhone and iPad, despite the fact that the South Korean company is also Apple's biggest rival in the consumer electronics space. Samsung produces custom chips such as the A7 found in the iPhone 5s, iPad Air and Retina iPad mini at its foundry in Austin, Tex.
GlobalFoundries has a chip production site in Malta, New York, which has been rumored to be in the running to produce chips for Apple for some time. But if a deal is finalized with GlobalFoundries, it would appear that it would be through Samsung, though Apple would give final approval on such a decision.
Apple has been long rumored to be working on a chipmaking deal with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., with the latest reports claiming the company could share production of Apple's anticipated "A8" chip in 2014. However, such rumors of an imminent deal with TSMC have persisted for years, and have yet to become a reality.
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Wesley Hilliard
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15 Comments
Makes me wonder if Sammy is trying to make room for their own requirement of 64-bit chips.
Makes me wonder if Sammy is trying to make room for their own requirement of 64-bit chips.
Thinking might also give GlobalFoundries a chance to "practice" with Apple chips
Would it not make sense for Apple to run its own foundry?
1) Samsung does not need more "space" of its own 64bit chips. They have enough wafer quantity to produce everything they need.
2) You can't take a chip design from Samsung and just start produce them at a GloFo foundry. You need a new tapeout, testwafers, verifying and probably re-spins.
According to Semiaccurate.com Apple already have a foundry/plan. Its behind a paywall, so I dont have any details. Semi are usually correct about foundry rumours.
Same with all that say that Intel should produce Apple A series Soc. There its a redesign Apple have to do on its socs. And people forget how big customer Apple is. Intel just have 2 22nm fabs and Apple would need 1 fab 24/7 just for their own chips.
But its strange that iPhone and iPad uses the same SoC. iPad usually get a better SoC with more graphic cores. For Apple its a huge saving just using one SoC design.
If Apple had 2 different designs, they could design one for GloFo and one for Samsung.
I personally have for years said that Apple should stop wasting money on dividend and share buyback. They should instead buy/build a high end foundry. Samsungs whole success story is because they have had Apples road map/chip designs since iPhone1. Samsung knows what kind of SoC Apple is going to use at least a year before the general public does.
The interesting thing about Apple is that they dont spend too much money on research. Apple however spends enormous money on tooling. For example paying sharp 500 millions to ramp up IGZO displays that made the iPad Air possible. Apple even outspend Intel on tooling and Intel have by far the best foundries in the world 1-1.5gen ahead of the competition.
And what happened to Apples own Flash/SSD? They bought Anobit years ago.
The reason why Samsung and Apple are the only two successful tablet/phone companies are: Samsung have their own fabs and can get all parts cheaper. Apple prepays billion to get parts cheaper. This is evidence that the idiotic outsourcing needs to die and Apple with all its money should manufacture all its own stuff. The A series SoC is a huge competitive advantage over all other ARM based/user companies.
1) Buy a foundry/built one
2) Buy sharp LCD plant
3) Sell developer versions of iOS stuff. Unsubsidized units without support and instead Root access to the user
4) Sell Android iPhones. The money is in the hardware. If Apple can sell 10% more phones its billions in profit
5) Dump Azure and make iCloud work. You can never outsource key business.
6) Gaming initiative for iOS and allow app installation on AppleTV.
7) Cheap USB powered AppleTV for Airplay and that kind of stuff.
8) Full A7 gaming version of AppleTV for gaming.
9) Make Ive CEO. Tim Cook is not good. He accept to made bad products/mistakes.
Makes me wonder if Sammy is trying to make room for their own requirement of 64-bit chips.
If Apple start selling more devices then expected, their manufacturers will need to up production volume to keep up. Subcontracting things out like this means that you don't have to worry about leaving huge overheads in case Apple suddenly need several million more chips.