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TSMC Manages to Secure A10 Order from Apple

TSMC goes full speed ahead with Apple's A10

Sep 14, 2015 13:49 GMT  ·  By
TSMC will bring next year's A10 iPhone 7 SoC
   TSMC will bring next year's A10 iPhone 7 SoC

New reports online are saying that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the company that will be supplying Apple's next-generation A10 processors. This sort of news confirms two things: first, that the iPhone 7 will come next year, and secondly, that Apple gave up on Samsung as manufacturer of its future A10 SoC wafers.

And that left TSMC, the other iPhone 6 A9 SoC manufacturer, to take 100% of process manufacturing orders from Apple to build the A10. However, this is both good news and bad news. The good news is that TSMC will have solid contracts that will help it gain tons of money from a very successful Apple in China, while the bad news is that the Taiwanese company will likely have its hands full working on Apple's wafers and will have to postpone any 10nm process research until the order is fulfilled in 2016.

Since the future A10 will work on 16nm manufacturing processes, just like the current A9, it's unlikely that TSMC will announce a progress as regards the 10nm process in parallel with the A10.

According to DigiTimes, TSMC will develop its in-house "backend integrated fan-out (InFO) wafer-level packaging for the production of the A10 chips, which will be built using the foundry's 16nm FinFET process technology, said the report, which cited unspecified Apple suppliers as its source. The A10 will be featured in the iPhone 7 series slated for launch during the third and fourth quarters of 2016."

Apple's money may prove detrimental to TSMC on the long run

Currently, this might be encouraging news for TSMC, but it's also very likely that, if TSMC can't handle the desired load or quality, Apple could get Samsung's fabs involved in the manufacturing of the A10 as well.

If TSMC had had to share the load with Samsung the same way it does for the A9, it would've allowed the company to continue the 10nm process and catch up with possible advances made by GlobalFoundries and Samsung. While the South Korean company will surely make great advances in manufacturing processes, TSMC will have to lag behind until it makes Apple happy.

For now, there is no official position from TSMC regarding this news from DigiTimes.