A9 Is TSMC 16nm FinFET and Samsung Fabbed
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A9 Is TSMC 16nm FinFET and Samsung Fabbed
1–10 of 17 posts
Re: A9 Is TSMC 16nm FinFET and Samsung Fabbed
#2What implications will this have on performance? Will one phone with TSMC's Chip out/under perform the other phone with Samsung's Chip?
Re: A9 Is TSMC 16nm FinFET and Samsung Fabbed
#3What implications will this have on performance? Will one phone with TSMC's Chip out/under perform the other phone with Samsung's Chip?
I would guess that Apple has been careful to keep performance the same.
Re: A9 Is TSMC 16nm FinFET and Samsung Fabbed
#4Re: A9 Is TSMC 16nm FinFET and Samsung Fabbed
#5What implications will this have on performance? Will one phone with TSMC's Chip out/under perform the other phone with Samsung's Chip?
I would guess that Apple has been careful to keep performance the same.
I'm guessing the frequencies (performance) are the same, but it's possible the Samsung process is able to run the same frequencies at lower voltages.
Re: A9 Is TSMC 16nm FinFET and Samsung Fabbed
#6What implications will this have on performance? Will one phone with TSMC's Chip out/under perform the other phone with Samsung's Chip?
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.
Re: A9 Is TSMC 16nm FinFET and Samsung Fabbed
#7What implications will this have on performance? Will one phone with TSMC's Chip out/under perform the other phone with Samsung's Chip?
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.
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.
Re: A9 Is TSMC 16nm FinFET and Samsung Fabbed
#8What implications will this have on performance? Will one phone with TSMC's Chip out/under perform the other phone with Samsung's Chip?
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.
That's... sort of exactly wrong. The process design rules (and transistor models) define the envelope within which the design must exist. The days of simple scalable design rules that port between fabs are long gone. Every process has its own crazy rules about how to draw a transistor.
Now... it's true that all the media reporting so far seems to treat TSMC's 14nm and Samsung/GlobalFoundries's 16nm processes as "essentially the same from a design perspective" (though both seem to lag Intel's 14nm in density). But until parts reach the market we won't actually know.
Re: A9 Is TSMC 16nm FinFET and Samsung Fabbed
#9What implications will this have on performance? Will one phone with TSMC's Chip out/under perform the other phone with Samsung's Chip?
All manufacturing processes have a certain amount of variability. Binning is the process of testing how fast a given chip can go and sorting them into categories based on that and possibly selling them for different prices based on the category. Apple generally has very few categories but maybe they've got Apple TV rated A9s, iPad mini A9s, and iPhone A9s. There's probably a difference in how many of each manufacturer's chips end up in each bin but unless you're into overclocking it's not something you'll ever have to worry about as a consumer. And I've never heard of someone overclocking an iPhone.
Re: A9 Is TSMC 16nm FinFET and Samsung Fabbed
#10FTA:
> 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.