Samsung Abandons A8 Production Over Low Yields?

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Posted February 17, 2014 at 6:44pm by iClarified

A new report from Taiwan says that Samsung has been forced to abandon orders for the Apple A8 processor due to low production yields.

Here's the Google Translation from TechNews Taiwan.

Samsung is currently the main problem facing the problem of low yield in its 20nm manufacturing process, not the title at Apple's demands, the need for an appropriate portion of A8 processor orders to TSMC, but based on recent progress news, Samsung was forced to abandon the orders may be more than just part of A8, A8 processor is probably all be produced by TSMC.

The site says TSMC's 20nm process is the fastest ever production of a manufacturing process and yields have improved to 50-70%.

Apple is still expected to split orders for the A9 processor between Samsung "to avoid excessive concentration of a single vendor."

Read More [via MacRumors]

Samsung Abandons A8 Production Over Low Yields?

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Shawn - February 19, 2014 at 12:10pm

I dont understand why people believe Apple would design 2 exactly same SoCs just so they can be manufactured by 2 different foundries. You can't take your tapeout from TSMC and walk to Samsung and have them manufacture it. No company in history have done that. So why would Apple be the first? Its a different story if Apple started to do A8 and A8X SoCs. Then one could be Samsung and the other TSMC. Anyway: Apple should buy a foundry instead of wasting money on shares and dividends. Historically companies with factories have been successful in the long run. 1995: Ericsson nr1 = own factories 1997-2011: Nokia nr1 = own factories. They could make phones for 50 dollars and make a profit! 2012-->: Samsung. No Android vendor can compete with Samsung since they get cheaper parts than everyone else. Apple is in a unique situation since they pay for factories being build and gets cheap stuff in return. For example LGs Retina screens. Samsungs NAND flash. But it would be much better if they bought a foundry from for example Intel since they have empty factories since people are ditching 1970 old technology X86.

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gamerscul9870 - February 19, 2014 at 12:13pm

They have empty factories? What?

skylander - February 18, 2014 at 12:50am

@Tony: I understand your frustration as others use a username similar to your name. While you are expressing your frustration, it's probably not a good idea to label and give bias to all your iPhone users. It's completely irrelevant. While I might get some hate reply, this kind of bias is just like fans of their own sports teams. It's no use and never solve the problem.

gamerscul9870 - February 17, 2014 at 7:06pm

I bet they will abandon copying this time, they don't realize why they are dropping users.