Apple Gives a Foundry Lesson

Kevin Krewell, Principal Analyst, Tirias Research
10/16/2015 04:30 PM EDT

The rush to analyze Apple products has led to distorted conclusions from some who fail to appreciate the nuances of semiconductor technology, says one analyst.

People in the market for an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, may have heard that there’s two different chips (Apple’s A9 SoC) powering the phones – one manufactured by Samsung and the other by TSMC. While the chip from both foundries are supposed to perform identically, the manufacturing processes used by TSMC and Samsung are not the same.

Once the secret of the Apple dual sourcing was out, gadget Web sites began testing the phones to compare the two version of the A9 processor. The result showed that the two versions do not appear to operate exactly the same. This could have a legitimate impact on which phone consumers chose, depending on how they use their phones. This situation has led to some consumer concerns that may have been inflated by some unrealistic testing.

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