Samsung's hopes to become the chip supplier for Apple's coming iPhone have reportedly been destroyed. According to a report from China's Economic Daily News, TSMC has obtained all of Apple's A11 chip orders. This might be due to the “chipgate” issue Apple faced with the A9 chipset in the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.
According to the report, TSMC will build the A11 chipset on the 10nm FinFET process for the iPhone that will be released next year. The Taiwan-based foundry has already begun completing the final design for A11, and the company might start a small volume production as soon as Q3, 2017. TSMC is already the exclusive supplier of the A10 chipset that will be used in the upcoming Apple iPhone 7.
Apart from Apple, TSMC is expected to make 10nm chipsets for Xilinx, MediaTek, and HiSilicon. TSMC co-CEO Mark Lui said, “our first 10nm customer product has been produced with satisfactory functional yield. So far, three customer products have been taped out to us,” at the company's investors meeting. Samsung is expected to manufacture 10nm-based Snapdragon 830 chips for Qualcomm.
