Samsung Will Be Producing A6 Chip For Apple
As you know about the ongoing litigation between Samsung and Apple, but it seems like Samsung is trying to produce the Apple’s quad-core A6 processor chip in its Austin, Texas based factory which opened in 2007. The report was published by Korea Times Monday yesterday as they got it from an internal industry source that has information about the matter, according to the report:
Apple has been in talks with Samsung over shipment of its A6 quad-core mobile processor (AP) chips to be used in the next iPhone. It appears that Apple clearly has concluded that Samsung remains a critical business partner. [...] Samsung Electronics will apply its advanced 28-nanometer processing technology to produce qualified A6 mobile APs. TSMC will provide customized chips with designs from Apple, however, the volume will be very small.
As you know last week Apple succeeded to ban Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia and Samsung was also seeking to stop the sales of iPhone 4S in Australia and Japan in an effort to counter attack Apple again. Currently Samsung is responsible of supplying Apple with NAND chips, SSDs and many other parts which collectively are of an estimated worth of $8 billion only this year and it just makes a rough 5% of Samsung’s entire revenue. So, we can say that Apple is Samsung’s biggest overseas client, even now.
According to the source; “Apple is not taking risks” so, TSMC has not yet initiated the manufacturing process. TSMC is the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and back in March, EETimes reported that Apple went to TSMC from Samsung for the production for A5 chip in iPad 2 but there too, TSMC could not materialize at that time. On the other hand, a report was published by Reuters in July that TSMC already started to test the production run of A6 chips on their newest 28 nanometer processors and 3D stacking technologies.
Well, obviously you cannot just easily switch your silicon parts provider, at least not at this big level. Often, this kind of process takes year to complete so, we can assume that Apple will be sourcing their own designed processors for their iOS devices from Samsung, well, at least until TSMC is ready to step in.
While on the other hand, Samsung is sending a clear message that it is not planning to sign a cross licensing deal with Apple and they will continue to fight with Apple in courts all around the world. As you can note from the report from Korea Times which states that one of the high ranking Samsung executives stated that; “Samsung don’t see any signs of entering a comprehensive cross-licensing deal with Apple”:
We don’t think we were losing our grip. The recent decisions by courts in Europe weren’t favorable. But we are still positive that we will win eventually. The bottom line is that our legal team has reached a consensus to beat Apple at the appeals courts. We are in for the long-haul.
Samsung chief executive Choi Gee-sung will take full responsibility of the ongoing legal issue.
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