This could be the first ripple of a very big wave: the Commercial Times out of Taiwan is claiming that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (or TSMC) is about to start trial production for Apple’s A6X SoC this quarter.
Why is this a big deal? Apple’s arch-nemesis Samsung currently manufacturers the A6X chip… and it might herald Apple shifting all of its multi-billion dollar chip business away.
The Commercial Times reports:
The Taiwanese company has been contracted to manufacture the A6X chip, which drives Apple’s iPad4 tablet, with trial production set for the first quarter of this year, Taiwan’s Commercial Times reported.
The move is the latest in a strings of efforts by Apple to switch mass manufacturing contracts away from Samsung, it said.
There have been a lot of rumblings lately about Apple switching from Samsung to TSMC for chip production, including the rumor that Apple and TSMC are building a $10 billion chip fab in the United States, either in New York or Oregon.
If Apple did shift all chip production for its mobile devices away from Samsung, it would be a huge blow to Apple’s “frenemy” arch-rival. Making chips for iOS devices is a multi-billion dollar business, and even a company as big as Samsung would have to feel that.
Source: AFP
