14 DAY TRIAL // Apple’s iPhone 6 isn’t due out until 2014, sources say, but Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is gearing up to satisfy processor orders from Apple.
A new report from Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes claims TSMC has actually scored 100% of the application processor (AP) orders from Apple, and is on track to begin mass production of the chips early next year at its Fab 14, Phase 5 facility located in southern Taiwan.
The sources reportedly said that, in order to satisfy a huge order placed by the Cupertino giant, “TSMC has begun equipment move-in for the phase-5 facility of its 12-inch fab,” adding that the plant “will be ready for production by the end of 2013.”
The facility, TSMC’s second fab capable of churning out chips made on a 20nm process, “is scheduled to begin volume production in early 2014,” the sources added.
The report doesn’t mention the actual name of the SoC (system on a chip) that Apple plans to use in its iPhone 6. Most bets are on A7, and there’s also a possibility it will be an A7X generation.
The report also includes some juicy details regarding Apple’s ongoing relationship with Samsung Electronics over the production of current-generation iPhone chips (A4, A5, A5X, A6, A6X).
According to the same sources, Samsung will continue to produce the chips used in existing iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models, including the processor for Apple’s upcoming iPhone, believed to be the iPhone 5S.
“Nonetheless, Apple appears to be accelerating its plans to minimize its dependence on Samsung […] judging from TSMC's pace of expansion at Fab 14,” the sources reportedly “observed.”
Nothing too consistent out of the notoriously-cautious DigiTimes which not only doesn’t name its sources, but can’t even put its finger on any of the details. Nonetheless, the details certainly sound legit this time around.