Apple's Implications for Semiconductor
Apple's iPhone 6 alone represents at least 50K wafer starts/month plus the iPad (A8X). What could the Iphone 6S/7 & A9 mean? What about the iWatch? Apple is the technology and volume driver of the semiconductor industry so lets take a look at the broader implications.
If we do the math the A8 is 89mm2 and 8.47 X 10.5mm. Using a die calculator that means that roughly 675 die can be squeezed onto a 12 inch wafer. If we assume a 75% yield we get 500 good die per wafer (I like to use round numbers). If we take 74.5 million iPhones over three months that's about 25 million a month (or 34K an hour...but who's counting?) Divided by 500 per wafer and you get 50K wafer starts a month, give or take, depending on yield etc... That sucks up a significant chunk of a fab and doesn't leave a lot of room for other customers.
To read the full article, click here
Related Semiconductor IP
- nQrux® Root of Trust IP
- AXI to UCIe Bridge IP
- UCIe 2.x Controller IP
- SWI3S (SoundWire I3S Interface) Peripheral Controller Core IP
- OpenTitan-based RISC-V Secure Element
Related Blogs
- How RISC-V Enables Low-Power Vision for ADAS System
- A Low-Leakage Digital Foundation for SkyWater 90nm SoCs: Introducing Certus’ Standard Cell Library
- The Architectural Evolution of 16GHz PLLs for Next-Gen AI and SerDes SoCs
- Why SAR Radar Is Driving Renewed Demand for C-Band GaN and GaAs Front-End IP
Latest Blogs
- From Bug Hunting to Engineering Methodology: Lessons from AI-Driven Development
- Manufacturing Intelligence: Turning EDA Data into Trusted Action
- Execute-in-Place: Getting More from Embedded NVM
- Rethinking RTL flows with AI-driven hybrid formal verification
- Arm and NVIDIA: Building the trusted compute foundation for the agentic AI era