chip

Apple's A6X processor, which is found in the company's fourth-generation iPad, might soon see its producer switched from Samsung to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

Apple has agreed with TSMC to initiate trial production of its A6X processor during the first quarter, Taiwan-based Commercial Times is reporting, according to the AFP. The trial period could decide whether TSMC will be given the entire A6X order.

Samsung, Apple's arch-rival in the mobile market, is currently producing the company's A6X processor. However, with their legal and competitive struggles increasingly weighing on their business relationship, reports have suggested that Apple … Read more

Back in August, we heard that Samsung wanted to go forward with a substantial investment in a Texas plant to boost chip production. Now U.S. officials have given their approval.

Samsung Electronics plans to turn the Austin chipmaking plant into a more profitable venture through the $3.9 billion investment, aiming for a renovation to try to cope with the increasing demand for mobile devices including smartphones and tablets. Now talks have been completed with Texas officials, production line expansion and renovation has been given permission to go ahead, according to Reuters.

Supply chain issues have the potential to … Read more

Intel today disclosed technology that it hopes will get more of its silicon inside smartphones and tablets.

At the International Electron Devices Meeting, Intel laid out its next-generation 22-nanometer "SoC" system-on-a-chip technology. An SoC puts most of a device's core functions onto one piece of silicon and is typically used in mobile devices where space and power efficiency are paramount.

"In the past...we were focused primarily on developing transistors with ever higher performance," Mark Bohr, an Intel senior fellow, said to journalists in a teleconference. "Now we're developing technologies with a much … Read more

IBM has advanced the technology of silicon photonics, fabricating a microchip that has built-in components to send and receive data over optical links.

Researchers have built optical data links into chips before, but IBM's move is notable because it uses conventional chipmaking equipment geared for chips with 90-nanometer features. Today's chips use metal wires to exchange data, but optical links offer the potential of higher transfer speeds over longer distances.

The chip can include several optical components including wavelength division multiplexers that let the chip send and receive signals with multiple frequencies of light, an approach that lets … Read more

Remember when a quad-core processor was the ultimate indicator of a super-smartphone? Well its 15 minutes are almost up.

Just as the current run of super-smartphones are destined for the bargain bin in a few months, so too will the novelty and obsession with the number of cores powering a phone begin to fade. Sure, smartphones with the latest quad-core chips still rule now, but companies are already preparing to change the conversation.

In its place, expect chip companies, handset manufacturers, and wireless carriers to shift their marketing away from an emphasis cores and more toward tangible benefits such as … Read more

Reports suggest that Apple is in the hunt for former Texas Instruments engineers in Israel, in a bid to expand its operations in the country.

According to sources speaking to The Next Web, Apple has been hiring "dozens" of engineers after the chipmaker cut 250 jobs from one of its Israeli operations center.

Apple is ramping up its efforts to build research and development centers in Herzliya and Haifa, the report said.

TI this month announced a round of redundancies, in the region of 1,700 employees worldwide, as it aims to pull out of the consumer market … Read more

RBC Capital Markets has a new twist to the frequent Apple-Intel relationship rumors, and this time, it could actually be good news for Intel.

According to RBC analyst Doug Freedman, Apple may be contemplating a new relationship where Intel would build Apple's self-designed ARM-based smartphone chips in exchange for Apple using Intel's X86 processors in certain new devices, like the next-generation iPad.

While it may seem illogical for Apple to use different processors in its mobile devices, that could be one way for it to secure enough capacity and use chips on the leading edge of technology. After … Read more

The 20 percent increase that Apple's now paying Samsung for the mobile processors it uses in iOS devices was scheduled at the beginning of this year and not simply payback for any legal losses, according to a new report.

Seoul-based newspaper The Hankyorek (via The Street) reports that the two companies agreed on the new processor prices earlier this year, contradicting an earlier report that suggested Samsung strong-armed Apple into paying more when the iPhone and iPad maker could not find a replacement.

The reported 20 percent increase brings a 1 percent to 2 percent hit on Apple's … Read more

Samsung has hiked the price of its mobile processors by 20 percent, but to only one of the Korean technology giant's customers: Apple.

The report comes from The Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch, citing a person familiar with the negotiations between the two smartphone and tablet makers.

According to the report, Samsung requested an increase in the price of the mobile "application" processor supplied to Apple, which the Cupertino, Calif.-based technology giant was forced to swallow as only Samsung provides the specific hardware required to make the shiny rectangles of various sizes work properly. … Read more