It looks like Samsung will continue to stay involved in the production of chips that power Apple's next-generation devices, if a new report is to be believed, that indicates Apple's latest A8 chip is partially-manufactured by Samsung.
According to a
report by Korean publication Hankyung, Samsung will be partially responsible for producing Apple's A8 chip along with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) with which Apple is
said to have struck a three year deal. The news outlet mentions that Samsung will take care of 30 to 40 percent of the manufacturing capacity while the rest would be handled by TSMC.
A few days back, a teardown by Chipworks
revealed that Apple's A7 (please link to A7 feature piece) processor (which powers the
iPhone 5s was being manufactured by Samsung though a 28-nm process node, used instead of a 32-nm process node.
In July, it was
reported that Apple had signed a new deal with Samsung under which the latter will supply processors for Apple's iPhone models, starting 2015. The report suggested that the agreement was signed on July 14, and that Samsung would produce the new chips deploying the 14 nano FinFET technology for Apple's iPhone 7 which is expected to release in the second half of 2015.
It was previously reported that
Apple had signed a three-year agreement with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company(TSMC) and its partner Global UniChip to make its new A-series chips built through 20nm, 16nm and 10nm process nodes. The report said that TSMC would commence production of Apple's A8 processor in small quantities in July 2013, and increase production capacity after December. It also said that a part of the chipmaker's capacity would be used for manufacturing new Apple A9 and A9X processors.
The Apple A8 processor is expected to power a new iPhone which is expected to release in 2014, while the A9 and A9X chips are likely to power new iPhone and iPad products.