Apple A7 Chip Almost Ready For Production
The current gen SoC (an acronym that stands for System on a Chip) is the Apple A6, a SoC used in both the iPhone 5 and the iPad with Retina display (or the iPad 4 as it is known). Manufactured by Samsung, the Apple A6 SoC is using a 1.3 GHz dual core CPU based on a custom ARMv7 designed by Apple, named Swift. The Apple A6 SoC also comes equipped with a integrated triple core PowerVR SGX 543MP3 GPU (graphics processing unit) that has a very similar performance to last gen’s Apple A5X. The pple A6 SoC also has 1GB of LPDDR2-1066 RAM, which is double the amount found in last gen’s Apple A5 SoC used in the iPhone 4S. Given its specs the Apple A6 SoC is an impressive chip, but according to a Thursday report from Asia, its successor is being readied for production as TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) will apparently “tape out” the Apple A7 chip this March.
According to this report, TSMC will reach the “tape out” stage (the tape out stage is related to the photomasking process and it is one of the last steps in circuit design) this month and reach an early production stage this summer (in May or maybe June). According to the sources, production for commercial use will begin in 2014 when it is expected to be used in Apple’s next line of iDevices during the first quarter of next year.
The Apple A7 chip is also said to use the 20 nm (nanometer) manufacturing process, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s future process. Since the 20 nm process it is a new manufacturing process for TSMC the A7 SoC is not expected to be ready for use in commercial iDevices before next year. Also, according to CNET’s sources, Apple has various iDevices that use Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s 20 nm process in the design stage.
Until now, the exclusive manufacturer of Apple’s A line of SoC (including the current generation Apple A6 SoC, used in both the iPad 4 and the iPhone 5) has been Samsung. However, there are rumors that Apple is trying to try new manufacturers and Intel is a name that appears in many recent rumors. According to one of these rumors, Intel will manufacture chips for Apple on its own 14 nanometer process, maybe as soon as next year, while yet another rumor states that Apple wants a limited production from Intel, on Intel’s 22 nanometer process, also possibly next year. Which of these rumors is true, we will see. However, one thing is almost certain (even though not officially confirmed): the Apple A6 successor, the Apple A7 SoC is coming and the first line of Apple iDevices to use it will probably be on stores next year.
