Development costs 'prohibitively high' for 7nm chips for everybody but Apple and TSMC

In the short term at least, Apple's 2018 iPhones are liable to be the only smartphones with 7-nanometer processors, a report suggested on Tuesday.

Two major chipmakers — Qualcomm and MediaTek — have postponed their own 7-nanometer launches until 2019, DigiTimes sources said. Another manufacturer, UMC, has shifted investment into "mature" and specialty process nodes, while Globalfoundries has put its 7-nanometer FinFET technology on indefinite hold.

The issue is the capital expenditures required to produce chips under the 10-nanometer mark, which are "prohibitively high," according to DigiTimes. One firm, HiSilicon, said it was planning to spend a minimum of $300 million on a system-on-chip built using 7-nanometer tech.

That leaves Apple's exclusive chip manufacturer, TSMC, as the only company expected to churn out 7-nanometer mobile processors in the immediate future.

Samsung is believed to be working on a 7-nanometer process as a way of winning back orders from Apple. For years it was the exclusive manufacturer of Apple's A-series processors, but in the past several years Apple has transitioned completely to TSMC, presumably to reduce dependence on its main competitor in the smartphone market and one-time legal adversary.

Shrinking chip size allows electronics makers to boost speeds and improve power efficiency, the latter especially important in the mobile world.

Apple is all but confirmed to be readying three iPhones to announce at its Sept. 12 press event in Cupertino. These include 5.8- and 6.5-inch OLED versions of the "iPhone XS," and a less expensive 6.1-inch LCD product. All of them should have a 7-nanometer "A12" processor, edge-to-edge displays, and TrueDepth cameras for Face ID and animoji.

88 Comments

gatorguy 24608 comments · 13 Years

About 6 years ago

Huawei announced one themselves (short referenced in the AI article as HiSilicon), and supposedly available in a shipping smartphone before the end of the year, and more widely entering next year.
https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/31/huawei-debuts-the-kirin-980-the-worlds-first-7nm-mobile-chip/

IMHO the early announcement is probably trying to one-up TSMC (and in the process Apple too), but no reason to think it's not legit.

Soli 9981 comments · 9 Years

gatorguy said:

Huawei announced one themselves (short referenced in the AI article as HiSilicon), and supposedly available in a shipping smartphone before the end of the year, and more widely entering next year.
https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/31/huawei-debuts-the-kirin-980-the-worlds-first-7nm-mobile-chip/

IMHO the early announcement is probably trying to one-up TSMC (and in the process Apple too), but no reason to think it's not legit.

Huawei isn't exactly high on my list of trustworthy companies.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13318/huawei-benchmark-cheating-headache

They may get it out in a shipping product sometime in October, but that would still be a month after Apple and nowhere near the volume that Apple will have. There entire run of the 980's may not even exceed what Apple sells in shipping devices on their first day.

hattig 860 comments · 19 Years

Soli said:

They may get it out in a shipping product sometime in October, but that would still be a month after Apple and nowhere near the volume that Apple will have. There entire run of the 980's may not even exceed what Apple sells in shipping devices on their first day.

Still the fact is that these companies have said they will be releasing 7nm TSMC products this year: * Apple - A12 * Huawei - Kirin 980 * AMD - Vega 20 making the claim in the article incorrect - the Mate 20 will have a 7nm SoC this year, even if it's 1/10th the number of A12s Apple release on day 1, that's still likely to be a large number (millions by year end).

[Deleted User] 0 comments · 11 Years

gatorguy said:

Huawei announced one themselves (short referenced in the AI article as HiSilicon), and supposedly available in a shipping smartphone before the end of the year, and more widely entering next year.
https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/31/huawei-debuts-the-kirin-980-the-worlds-first-7nm-mobile-chip/

IMHO the early announcement is probably trying to one-up TSMC (and in the process Apple too), but no reason to think it's not legit.

In the article you linked, it says HiSilicon are a "fabless" outfit, chip designers essentially. "In partnership with TSMC..." kinda suggests TSMC manufactured that one too. So they really are the only 7nm-capable company.

avon b7 8008 comments · 20 Years

HiSilicon (Huawei) has had 7nm chips in mass production (TSMC) since around June according to many rumours. It has also been said that they have a contractual amount of orders (millions) to be fulfilled for launch phones (suspected to be three models in the short term).

Apple needs volume on launch because it releases one refresh every year.

Huawei will release four flagship phones over the coming 12 months and as a result doesn't have anywhere near the pent up demand for September/October release. It will be spread out over the year and before year's end the Kirin 980 will also be in mid tier devices as well as non-handset devices.

Quite why this report exists is a mystery as Huawei presented the Kirin 980 just last week to a world audience at IFA Berlin, live blogged and all:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13302/ifa-2018-huawei-kirin-980-keynote-live-blog

They said it took three years to develop and gave the date of presentation for the first phone to use it: 16th October.

Honor said the Magic 2 would also use it very soon. Rumours point to a December release. They wouldn't have announced that part if supply constraints were expected.

This is the second time DigiTimes has made this type of claim (I'm basing this on AI articles). The first time was when they claimed only Apple and Samsung had the financial resources to bring 7nm to market.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/13/apple-samsung-could-be-only-smartphone-makers-with-7nm-chips-in-2018