Apple, Samsung in 20nm Race

Kevin Krewell, Principal Analyst, Tirias Research
EETimes (9/15/2014 06:55 PM EDT)

Samsung was expected to be the first supplier to ship a 20nm smartphone SoC with its Exynos 5430, but Apple's just-announced iPhone 6 and 6 Plus run on their own 20nm A8 processor and will be available for sale Sept. 19. The Exynos 5430 will first appear in the Samsung Alpha smartphone that is also expected to ship in September. Which phone ships first is superfluous, but what is most interesting is that these companies used the new process node in different ways.

Samsung is using the 20nm shrink to reduce power and extend battery life, in part to compensate for the additional power required to support the LTE-Advanced modem in the Alpha handset. In Intel's "tick-tock" parlance, the 5430 would be a tick -- a die shrink with no major architecture changes.

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