
A9 Is TSMC 16nm FinFET and Samsung Fabbed - glasshead969
http://www.chipworks.com/about-chipworks/overview/blog/a9-is-tsmc-16nm-finfet-and-samsung-fabbed
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ajross
FTA:

> _From a benchmarking point of view, the smaller die size shows a leadership
> in technology scaling for Samsung._

Almost certainly true.

> _On the other hand, for Apple to go through all the trouble of dual-sourcing
> a custom designed part and launching on day one with both parts, suggests
> major sourcing problems._

Well... maybe. Or alternatively this is Apple throwing their cash around for
long term leverage. They certainly can pay to have the initial design done on
two different processes. And having done so, it puts TSMC and Samsung (and GF,
who shares Samsung's process and would be an obvious third source) into a
terrible bind: Apple can squeeze them with the constant (and credible!) threat
of flight to a competitor.

See previous coverage of NVIDIA's rocky relationship with TSMC for an example
of something Apple is probably trying to avoid.

~~~
dvogel
Another way to look at it is that using multiple suppliers and multiple
designs allows them to shorten the production time window before launch. That
allows them to use more time for design while curtailing their suppliers'
ability to leak info about the parts.

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vxxzy
What implications will this have on performance? Will one phone with TSMC's
Chip out/under perform the other phone with Samsung's Chip?

~~~
gothenburg
It shouldn't have any implications for the customer, performance/power
consumption/reliability are much more defined during the design phase than the
fabrication phase.

The end user shouldn't worry, or even think, in what foundry was the chip
fabricated in because it doesn't really matter if you are not the engineering
team.

~~~
emn13
Manufacturing process definitely impacts transistor performance including
critical things like leakage and speed/voltage trade-offs. I'd be quite
surprised if benchmarks that included power consumption couldn't distinguish
between the two sources. As to whether it's going to be noticeable in practice
- who knows, but the fact that apple's risking it suggests they're confident
enough.

Similarly, I'm not sure how you expect reliability not to be affected by
process; of course it'll be. But how often have you heard of a chip failing
after it passes initial validation (something presumably apple does have a
hand in)? It's not going to matter.

~~~
gothenburg
Just a note before anything else: it's not a "manufacturing process". Nobody
is laying out the transistor by hand, it's a fabrication process. (I apologize
for nitpicking in the wording, but it's important)

Apple does these kind of things for two main reasons: Because they have the
money and because they want to test both fabrication processes for future
products

The differences between a 14nm process and a 16nm process are quite minimal
mostly because one process can offer some advantages over the other one. For
example: it's expected that the smaller process has bigger leakage current,
increasing power consumption, while it's expected for the bigger process to
produce more heat.

In the end, you could say that if you sum the advantages and disadvantages of
both, you will not reach any conclusion if you are not the engineering team
looking for extreme optimization and with Apple's resources at your disposal.

It's just hard to come to a concrete conclusion from a consumer's point of
view.

~~~
emn13
It's not just 14nm vs. 16nm though - two 16nm processes can still have
significant differences due to materials

And even "16nm" something of a marketing term - something tiny feature in
there is at 16nm resolution, but lots of other things are larger. And which
things are how large, of course, _also_ matters...

