Interesting for those curious about the new processor. The fact that it's Samsung, a company supposedly at odds with Apple, isn't much of a story. It's not even news: (from July 1!)
They've provided parts to Apple for years, and their bottom line and stock price have been rewarded. (represents about 15-20% of their components sales)
The mobile division and the components divisions in the company operate fairly separately. That's why the oft commented, "They should just stop shipping parts to Apple to punish them for the lawsuit!" is kinda ridiculous.
What is interesting is that this reported $5B application processor contract with Samsung is likely drying up after the iPhone5S (plus next iPad rev?) as Apple transitions to TSMC. It therefore implies that all TSMC designs will likely be 64-bit, which will now likely change the planning for other pure-play foundries dreaming of that $5B order from Cupertino:
>>That's why the oft commented, "They should just stop shipping parts to Apple to punish them for the lawsuit!" is kinda ridiculous.
They can't just stop or they'll face bankruptcy by paying Apple damages. No doubt Apple made them sign an ironclad contract...and most likely a few years notice is part of it. Apple isn't stupid.
Not to mention that Samsung isn't doing Apple any favors, they're making a fortune because of the Apple contract. If they decide not to renew it, that's their prerogative but I'm sure Apple has plan A and B ready. Someone else will gladly take their money
I always felt they could take what ever the damages award ended up to be, divide that by the volume of chips they send Apple, And then raise the price per chip that much.
Don't not ship, just make sure that the patent damages don't cause any hit to the bottom line.
While you are right, if a supplier is actively working against a customer, it is going to create problems. There are always a million things outside of the contract that matter. If the customer exceeds capacity planning volume, that gets resolved outside of the contract. Most suppliers will bend over backwards to help the customer. Will Samsung? Maybe.
If I were Apple, I'd prefer a supplier that has a natural incentive to be a great supplier rather than one that only has a contractual obligation. In the long term, contracts are as hollow as wedding vows. The relationship between a customer and supplier must be mutually beneficial with aligned interests.
Samsung and Apple are both massive companies with an immense amount of overlap, so one of them boycotting the other would be like the US boycotting China. It just doesn't make sense.
Although it's only prudent that they still keep each-other at arms length, and scrutinize every business decision with the other.
True to some extent. Fundamentally Samsung is a Diversified company but Apple is very Focussed. Samsung electronics itself is so massive that one branch of it(LSI), depends on Apple for its volume which can keep its Fab busy for years. But, its other branch(Mobile) competes with Apple phones though. Similarly Apple depends on sammy only for its proven Fab and competitive Prices. Guess TSMC is no where near Sammys Fab technology and lost Apples deal.
Btw, Samsung is so massive and diversified that it is into areas like Construction, Ship Building, Finance, Automobile, Retail.
Its a very different company. It adapts to any domain, very fast. Few years back it became Top player in consumer electronics,last year it surpassed Apple in smart phones sales, had been a top player in Memory and tomorrow if space travel is the money spinner, it will be there.
You know Burj Khalifa, Taipei 101, Petronas are all built by Samsung ofcourse Samsung Engineering & Construction. So we need to mind which part of samsung we are talking about.
I don't think that really describes this situation (competitors in one product market are often supply chain partners in another). However, I can really relate to your comment. As someone who considers myself to be more on the producer side of the consumer electronics equation, I'm often perplexed at how many consumers make these brands part of their identity, the way people were really passionate about what kind of shoes to wear back in the 80's! This sort of consumer excitement probably does benefit the producers.
If Apple starts getting marketshare, Apple wins and Samsung wins.
If Android starts getting marketshare. Samsung wins and Apple loses.
I bet each production cycle Apple starts threatening it will manufacture its own chips and it starts to feed the rumor mill. Samsung gets nervous and gives them a very good deal.
Even if Samsung's profit margin drops significantly, it's still going to look much much better to the markets than if they lose their Apple contract.
"If Android starts getting marketshare. Samsung wins and Apple loses."
This is conventional wisdom and at some level of course it's true but in general I think it's misleading. The fact is that the markets Apple and Samsung are in are not identical. The market Apple competes in roughly equates with the top third of the smartphone market. Samsung competes in the entire phone market. It's quite possible for both to gain market share at the same time in their respective markets. And even if they weren't it's possible for both to lose market share but still be successful because the market for smartphones itself is increasing rapidly.
The way I look at it, is that Apple is trying to have its way by shopping between Samsung, TSMC, and any others. Their leverage doing this comes from offering bulk purchases, or in the case of LCDs, helping to finance large capital expenditures. Their biggest worry right now is that Samsung's competition doesn't seem able to compete, at least at scale.
At the end of the day though, if push ever comes to shove, there isn't much they couldn't afford to buy outright, even their own fabs. I was holding out hope that they were trying to save 200B to build out their own wireless infrastructure, but they could conceivably buy control of Intel instead.
Keep in mind that the ARM processor space operates on razor thin margins, and Apple's iPhone business does not. Also it has been rumored for a long time that apple is moving most of its chip fab business to TSMC, but I suspect their waiting for the next process node before making the jump. A company that values reliability like apple prefers a mature process.
I work with a fair number of (awesome!) Korean engineers, and I can say that yes, Samsung has a lot of fanboys. It's sort of like the Apple of Korea. It's also been gaining a lot of admiration from A/V enthusiasts in the States, having easily supplanted Sony as the high-end consumer electronics maker of choice for TVs and such.
Samsung is a very impressive company. It doesn't use the Nike-esque marketing playbook Apple does, and as such, it doesn't inspire the hero worship or the fanaticism in the States. But it's been quietly building up a massive empire.
[Full disclosure: I say this as an Apple fanboy, and as the resident iOS 7 apologist at my office (everyone here's firmly on Team Android). I own plenty of Apple and Samsung devices, and I don't feel the need to declare absolute brand loyalty to any one provider.]
Reporters should ask Tim Cook the following question:
"Does Apple make anything which is best-in-class which other companies need?".
The answer is obvious. No.
> "Chipworks also found the new M7 motion coprocessor inside the iPhone 5s, which is labeled as the NXP LPC18A1. It's based on the LPC1800 series Cortx-M3 microcontrollers made by NXP. As for the enhanced camera in the iPhone 5s, the iSight module was discovered to be a custom Exmor-RS sensor from Sony. Other parts in the handset include a touchscreen controller from Broadcom, an LTE modem by Qualcomm, and NAND flash from SK Hynix."
Best in class products from Apple which companies use include the iPhone, iPad and their laptops. If you're just pointing out that Apple isn't a component maker, I'm not sure what the point is other than trivia.
edit: To clarify, I mean this because the A7 is a custom design that just happens to be fabbed by Samsung under contract, rather than an off-the-shelf component, like the M7, that has simply been granted a marketing buzzword. Other OEMs will not simply be able to integrate the A7 in their products for this reason.
My favorite part about this is that Gruber has been repeating the speculation that the chip was not manufactured by Samsung. He turned out to be wrong. When others are wrong with their "Claim Chowder" (as he likes to call it) he shits all over then. But this is all you get from him when he is wrong: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/09/20/a7
Gruber reported the speculation as just that - speculation. He didn't write crazy opinions about how 'Samsung was doomed' or how 'Samsung's CEO should step down' etc. etc.
His swift acknowledgement of when he was wrong was entirely appropriate.
The people who be calls out with 'claim chowder' make ludicrous assertions, and never acknowledge they were wrong.
He has used that speculation to kind of refute other people's different speculations. So he did more than just report it... he bought into it and used it to tell other people they were wrong.
Let me figure this out: Samsung manufactures Touchscreen, CPUs and perhaps other chips for Apple, yet Apple sue them from time to time over software patents and design ideas.
Gigantic multinational megaconglomerates are, well, huge. They may operate under the same overall banner, but operationally they tend to be almost fully independent entities. Many are legally distinct corporations with their own finances, budgets, and operations.
Apple employing the component manufacturing arm of Samsung can occur simultaneously with Apple suing the consumer device design arm.
Say you sell lumber, and I sell furniture, and buy a lot of my raw materials from you. You start making furniture too, and your furniture seems a little too inspired by mine, maybe going over the line of what's legal, so I sue you. However, your lumber is still top quality despite that, so I keep buying your lumber even while suing you over your furniture.
In your example, 15-20% of your lumber sales are to me, so regardless of what happens with the furniture situation, you still want to keep selling me lumber. It's a symbiotic relationship.
If you've ever worked at a company with more than a single employee, surely you've noticed that not all employees necessarily know what the other employees are doing.
Now imagine that scaled up to a giant corporation, with hundreds of thousands of employees, and multiple independent divisions with their own goals, strategies, and financial responsibilities.
Yes, when you are working with a company and sharing trade secrets only to have them turn around and take those secrets to make their own devices that compete directly with yours and then they make commercials making fun of said products and your customers, that doesn't really help the business relationship.
I keep hearing this. What are those 'secrets' that you are talking about (Any link which gives specific information?) Samsung has been making phones much before Apple has been. Are those secrets "Rounded phone corners", "icons in a grid", "Slide to Unlock", or "jumping scrollbar"?
It can't have hurt the relationship that bad if Apple haven't sourced a new provider. If I were Apple I'd pull the contract on principle but I'm sure financial forces are at play here.
Samsung does a lot of things. They build ships. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Well, it does, but it can't do anything about it. This is a big company.
Companies as big as Apple and Samsung have gotten over their egos in favor of profits. Just because one company is suing the other, in no way prevents them from entering other mutually beneficial agreements.
Somehow, companies like Apple (and nVidia) get to call themselves "completely vertically integrated" even though they don't own any fabs. I've never understood this.
I never saw Apple call itself this way, but I can be wrong, I believe it's more of an Apple rumors thing, like some years ago some people were telling how Apple would just put it's custom designed CPU on Macbooks and build everything by itself, including GPU.
This happened even here in HN, I think these guys are the equivalent of the MS fans back at the time of the dot-com bubble telling how MS would rule the world.
Samsung is considered completely vertically integrated by many, even though they don't mine their own raw materials or operate their own power plants to power their factories. I've never understood that either.
I've always heard "vertically integrated" as a separate category from "IC design house". Supply chains are long and the endpoints vary depending on the context.
I'm not sure how this is significant. Many of Apple's core technologies and hardware are produced by Samsung or with Samsung's help, e.g. Retina display for MacBook Pro, A4 and previous chips, and SSDs in the MacBook Pro and MacBook Aero.
It's quite disappointing to see this on the frontpage, in all honesty.
I agree. I feel like I see this posted all the time (in comments on various threads) and there's always a large group that is shocked and/or don't understand.
At a guess, I imagine it's really difficult to rip off a chip design just by looking at raw circuit designs (unless you're copying the entire chip). Wouldn't it take a great amount of expertise to look at some plans for a chip and say "oh, that's why it works so well!"?
It works so well mostly because it works only with other Apple hardware and software. They have up to 10 designs to optimize. That are fairly close to each other.
Most prior Apple designs have been close to stock ARM core implementations coupled with a PowerVR GPU. There hasn't been much if anything to steal, given that Samsung also licenses PowerVR GPUs and is also an ARM licensee.
The A7 is interesting in that it's the first mainstream 64-bit part, but I see Samsung being far more interested in the A53/A57 (designs that Samsung gets straight from ARM) than the A7. The A7, if rumors are true, is a sort of hybrid approach to use one of the next generation, 64-bit ARM cores early, similar to what Qualcomm does.
EDIT: ARM nomenclature is such a mess. The A7 runs ARMv7 or ARMv8 using a sort-of A57 dual-core architecture, but should not be confused with the ARMv7 Cortex-A7.
The A7 is not a hybrid approach. A7 is an ARMv8 chip (it implements the ARMv8 ISA), but not an ARM design (that's the difference between the processor license (can use ARM-designed cores) and the architecture license (can design own core implementing ARM ISA). Apple and Qualcomm have both licenses. There's nothing "hybrid" about using your architecture license.
ARMv8 provides two architectures: AArch64 and AArch32. Implementors can implement either or both. AArch64 is the brand new architecture while AArch32 is backwards-compatible with ARMv7-A. If both are implemented, it's possible to switch between AArch32 and AArch64 on the fly at specific change points, giving the ability to run AArch32 (= ARMv7) applications seamlessly on an AArch64 kernel (or an AArch32 guest os in an AArch64 hypervisor).
Up until the A5 the chips were designed and built by Samsung (from relatively standard ARM references). Apple hasn't done anything particularly exciting since.
It's also fun that they found the M7, considering that the initial teardown left iFixit with the impression that it was just some marketing buzzword for a part of the A7. As has been mentioned in the thread, it is still an off-the-shelf component, but at least we know the truth now (that the "M7" really still is a separate IC).
IMHO Samsung and Apple compete on marketing and not in technology. That's why you can find Samsung chips in Apple devices.
So, the vertical integration Samsung has in the manufacturing process is not great competitive advantage. However, Apple is strongly vertical integrated in the retail side. This makes a difference.
Samsung as a chip fab is not the same Samsung that designs phones. They fall under the same name umbrella, but likely they have individual targets to meet annually, and Apple is one of the biggest chip consumers in town. It's a good fit, I never get why people are surprised by that.
Interesting for those curious about the new processor. The fact that it's Samsung, a company supposedly at odds with Apple, isn't much of a story. It's not even news: (from July 1!)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732468220457851...
They've provided parts to Apple for years, and their bottom line and stock price have been rewarded. (represents about 15-20% of their components sales)
The mobile division and the components divisions in the company operate fairly separately. That's why the oft commented, "They should just stop shipping parts to Apple to punish them for the lawsuit!" is kinda ridiculous.
When it was RUMORED that Samsung lost a significant contract for Apple chips to a competitor, they lost $10B in market cap: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/16/us-samsung-chips-i...
What is interesting is that this reported $5B application processor contract with Samsung is likely drying up after the iPhone5S (plus next iPad rev?) as Apple transitions to TSMC. It therefore implies that all TSMC designs will likely be 64-bit, which will now likely change the planning for other pure-play foundries dreaming of that $5B order from Cupertino:
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319218
What is Samsung's primary stock ticker symbol?
They trade in south korea so you wouldn't find their stock in US markets if you searched for it there..
It appears to be SSNLF, or 005930.KS? http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=005930.KS
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They trade in south korea so you wouldn't find it in the us markets.
>>That's why the oft commented, "They should just stop shipping parts to Apple to punish them for the lawsuit!" is kinda ridiculous.
They can't just stop or they'll face bankruptcy by paying Apple damages. No doubt Apple made them sign an ironclad contract...and most likely a few years notice is part of it. Apple isn't stupid.
Not to mention that Samsung isn't doing Apple any favors, they're making a fortune because of the Apple contract. If they decide not to renew it, that's their prerogative but I'm sure Apple has plan A and B ready. Someone else will gladly take their money
I always felt they could take what ever the damages award ended up to be, divide that by the volume of chips they send Apple, And then raise the price per chip that much.
Don't not ship, just make sure that the patent damages don't cause any hit to the bottom line.
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While you are right, if a supplier is actively working against a customer, it is going to create problems. There are always a million things outside of the contract that matter. If the customer exceeds capacity planning volume, that gets resolved outside of the contract. Most suppliers will bend over backwards to help the customer. Will Samsung? Maybe.
If I were Apple, I'd prefer a supplier that has a natural incentive to be a great supplier rather than one that only has a contractual obligation. In the long term, contracts are as hollow as wedding vows. The relationship between a customer and supplier must be mutually beneficial with aligned interests.
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Apple CEO has a glass of wine with Samsung CEO, laughing while reading fanboys of both companies fight about which company is best. wink
Samsung and Apple are both massive companies with an immense amount of overlap, so one of them boycotting the other would be like the US boycotting China. It just doesn't make sense.
Although it's only prudent that they still keep each-other at arms length, and scrutinize every business decision with the other.
True to some extent. Fundamentally Samsung is a Diversified company but Apple is very Focussed. Samsung electronics itself is so massive that one branch of it(LSI), depends on Apple for its volume which can keep its Fab busy for years. But, its other branch(Mobile) competes with Apple phones though. Similarly Apple depends on sammy only for its proven Fab and competitive Prices. Guess TSMC is no where near Sammys Fab technology and lost Apples deal.
Btw, Samsung is so massive and diversified that it is into areas like Construction, Ship Building, Finance, Automobile, Retail. Its a very different company. It adapts to any domain, very fast. Few years back it became Top player in consumer electronics,last year it surpassed Apple in smart phones sales, had been a top player in Memory and tomorrow if space travel is the money spinner, it will be there.
You know Burj Khalifa, Taipei 101, Petronas are all built by Samsung ofcourse Samsung Engineering & Construction. So we need to mind which part of samsung we are talking about.
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Huh? Is Apple running a fab in their backyard? What exactly do they own in terms of technology that others rely on?
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I don't think that really describes this situation (competitors in one product market are often supply chain partners in another). However, I can really relate to your comment. As someone who considers myself to be more on the producer side of the consumer electronics equation, I'm often perplexed at how many consumers make these brands part of their identity, the way people were really passionate about what kind of shoes to wear back in the 80's! This sort of consumer excitement probably does benefit the producers.
But it's a fundamentally uneven relationship.
If Apple starts getting marketshare, Apple wins and Samsung wins.
If Android starts getting marketshare. Samsung wins and Apple loses.
I bet each production cycle Apple starts threatening it will manufacture its own chips and it starts to feed the rumor mill. Samsung gets nervous and gives them a very good deal.
Even if Samsung's profit margin drops significantly, it's still going to look much much better to the markets than if they lose their Apple contract.
"If Android starts getting marketshare. Samsung wins and Apple loses."
This is conventional wisdom and at some level of course it's true but in general I think it's misleading. The fact is that the markets Apple and Samsung are in are not identical. The market Apple competes in roughly equates with the top third of the smartphone market. Samsung competes in the entire phone market. It's quite possible for both to gain market share at the same time in their respective markets. And even if they weren't it's possible for both to lose market share but still be successful because the market for smartphones itself is increasing rapidly.
The way I look at it, is that Apple is trying to have its way by shopping between Samsung, TSMC, and any others. Their leverage doing this comes from offering bulk purchases, or in the case of LCDs, helping to finance large capital expenditures. Their biggest worry right now is that Samsung's competition doesn't seem able to compete, at least at scale.
At the end of the day though, if push ever comes to shove, there isn't much they couldn't afford to buy outright, even their own fabs. I was holding out hope that they were trying to save 200B to build out their own wireless infrastructure, but they could conceivably buy control of Intel instead.
Keep in mind that the ARM processor space operates on razor thin margins, and Apple's iPhone business does not. Also it has been rumored for a long time that apple is moving most of its chip fab business to TSMC, but I suspect their waiting for the next process node before making the jump. A company that values reliability like apple prefers a mature process.
Samsung has fanboys ?
I work with a fair number of (awesome!) Korean engineers, and I can say that yes, Samsung has a lot of fanboys. It's sort of like the Apple of Korea. It's also been gaining a lot of admiration from A/V enthusiasts in the States, having easily supplanted Sony as the high-end consumer electronics maker of choice for TVs and such.
Samsung is a very impressive company. It doesn't use the Nike-esque marketing playbook Apple does, and as such, it doesn't inspire the hero worship or the fanaticism in the States. But it's been quietly building up a massive empire.
[Full disclosure: I say this as an Apple fanboy, and as the resident iOS 7 apologist at my office (everyone here's firmly on Team Android). I own plenty of Apple and Samsung devices, and I don't feel the need to declare absolute brand loyalty to any one provider.]
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My wife loves our Samsung washer and dryer. She's a fanboy
I don't know about phones, but I know a lot of PC gamers swear by Samsung monitors. Also their SSDs are among the most popular right now.
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Samsung makes the best smartphones in the world ;-)
Also http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/pcs/NP940X3G-K01US
Are you serious?
of course, just like republicans and democrats in the US :)
While Jony Ive sips on a glass of Hpnotiq with orange juice.
Reporters should ask Tim Cook the following question:
"Does Apple make anything which is best-in-class which other companies need?".
The answer is obvious. No.
> "Chipworks also found the new M7 motion coprocessor inside the iPhone 5s, which is labeled as the NXP LPC18A1. It's based on the LPC1800 series Cortx-M3 microcontrollers made by NXP. As for the enhanced camera in the iPhone 5s, the iSight module was discovered to be a custom Exmor-RS sensor from Sony. Other parts in the handset include a touchscreen controller from Broadcom, an LTE modem by Qualcomm, and NAND flash from SK Hynix."
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/20/samsung-confirmed-...
Best in class products from Apple which companies use include the iPhone, iPad and their laptops. If you're just pointing out that Apple isn't a component maker, I'm not sure what the point is other than trivia.
This is potentially a bit of a loaded question, since compare the following similar question:
"Does Apple use any components which are best-in-class and unavailable to competitors?"
The answer there is "yes", at least according to a bevy of evidence from the AnandTech review/benchmarks: http://anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review.
edit: To clarify, I mean this because the A7 is a custom design that just happens to be fabbed by Samsung under contract, rather than an off-the-shelf component, like the M7, that has simply been granted a marketing buzzword. Other OEMs will not simply be able to integrate the A7 in their products for this reason.
My favorite part about this is that Gruber has been repeating the speculation that the chip was not manufactured by Samsung. He turned out to be wrong. When others are wrong with their "Claim Chowder" (as he likes to call it) he shits all over then. But this is all you get from him when he is wrong: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/09/20/a7
If you look at his other posts for the day they're all short statements. Maybe he's just in a particularly non-verbose mood.
He almost always does short statements often of a slightly ambiguous nature. This helps him avoid having to say he's wrong in the future.
His sterling analysis (i.e. complete failure to see it'd be a success) of the Galaxy Note monster phones is a fine example of this.
the guy is s shill for Apple. not surprising at all.
Gruber reported the speculation as just that - speculation. He didn't write crazy opinions about how 'Samsung was doomed' or how 'Samsung's CEO should step down' etc. etc.
His swift acknowledgement of when he was wrong was entirely appropriate.
The people who be calls out with 'claim chowder' make ludicrous assertions, and never acknowledge they were wrong.
Very different.
He has used that speculation to kind of refute other people's different speculations. So he did more than just report it... he bought into it and used it to tell other people they were wrong.
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Let me figure this out: Samsung manufactures Touchscreen, CPUs and perhaps other chips for Apple, yet Apple sue them from time to time over software patents and design ideas.
Can someone help me understand this?
Gigantic multinational megaconglomerates are, well, huge. They may operate under the same overall banner, but operationally they tend to be almost fully independent entities. Many are legally distinct corporations with their own finances, budgets, and operations.
Apple employing the component manufacturing arm of Samsung can occur simultaneously with Apple suing the consumer device design arm.
The current relationship may not last much longer. It's been reported that Apple has signed a deal with TSMC for 2014.
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Say you sell lumber, and I sell furniture, and buy a lot of my raw materials from you. You start making furniture too, and your furniture seems a little too inspired by mine, maybe going over the line of what's legal, so I sue you. However, your lumber is still top quality despite that, so I keep buying your lumber even while suing you over your furniture.
In your example, 15-20% of your lumber sales are to me, so regardless of what happens with the furniture situation, you still want to keep selling me lumber. It's a symbiotic relationship.
If you've ever worked at a company with more than a single employee, surely you've noticed that not all employees necessarily know what the other employees are doing.
Now imagine that scaled up to a giant corporation, with hundreds of thousands of employees, and multiple independent divisions with their own goals, strategies, and financial responsibilities.
Yes, when you are working with a company and sharing trade secrets only to have them turn around and take those secrets to make their own devices that compete directly with yours and then they make commercials making fun of said products and your customers, that doesn't really help the business relationship.
I keep hearing this. What are those 'secrets' that you are talking about (Any link which gives specific information?) Samsung has been making phones much before Apple has been. Are those secrets "Rounded phone corners", "icons in a grid", "Slide to Unlock", or "jumping scrollbar"?
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It can't have hurt the relationship that bad if Apple haven't sourced a new provider. If I were Apple I'd pull the contract on principle but I'm sure financial forces are at play here.
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Samsung does a lot of things. They build ships. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Well, it does, but it can't do anything about it. This is a big company.
It's simple, unless Apple aggressively defends their patents, Samsung could easily create very competitive clones of Apple's products.
Companies as big as Apple and Samsung have gotten over their egos in favor of profits. Just because one company is suing the other, in no way prevents them from entering other mutually beneficial agreements.
Which part is hard for you to understand? That Apple has patents that are applicable irrespective of the underlying hardware?
Maybe Apple leveraged some advantageous deal with them in exchange for not suing them anymore
Somehow, companies like Apple (and nVidia) get to call themselves "completely vertically integrated" even though they don't own any fabs. I've never understood this.
I never saw Apple call itself this way, but I can be wrong, I believe it's more of an Apple rumors thing, like some years ago some people were telling how Apple would just put it's custom designed CPU on Macbooks and build everything by itself, including GPU.
This happened even here in HN, I think these guys are the equivalent of the MS fans back at the time of the dot-com bubble telling how MS would rule the world.
EDIT: a "this" became "these"
Samsung is considered completely vertically integrated by many, even though they don't mine their own raw materials or operate their own power plants to power their factories. I've never understood that either.
I wouldn't be too sure! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Engineering
I've always heard "vertically integrated" as a separate category from "IC design house". Supply chains are long and the endpoints vary depending on the context.
"Completely" is not true, but maybe completeness isn't the important/essential advantage of verticals.
I'm learning from my comment that "completely" is entirely relative to a group and their narrative.
There's at least one claim out there that Apple has a fab now: http://semiaccurate.com/2013/07/12/apple-has-their-own-fab/ .
(I suppose one question is when Google will get one...)
They also make their retina displays and many components.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/04/samsung-tablet-ipad-r...
If anyone is interested as to the feats of this processor, this is an interesting review:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review/2
Correction. Apple's A7 is fabricated by Samsung. It is wholly designed by Apple. They're just using Samsung's foundry.
It's actually mostly designed by ARM holdings. Apple simply designs the SoC layout and chooses the components.
The GPU is a design from Imagination Technologies, the CPU is an Apple design. What part of the SoC is "mostly designed by ARM"?
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I'm not sure how this is significant. Many of Apple's core technologies and hardware are produced by Samsung or with Samsung's help, e.g. Retina display for MacBook Pro, A4 and previous chips, and SSDs in the MacBook Pro and MacBook Aero.
It's quite disappointing to see this on the frontpage, in all honesty.
I agree. I feel like I see this posted all the time (in comments on various threads) and there's always a large group that is shocked and/or don't understand.
It's silly.
There was a lot of talk about the A7 being potentially made by another company. In that context, saying that nothing has changed is still significant.
Fanboys will be fanboys.
Not sure if OP realises that the unsubscribe and edit your subscription links work for his account.
How isn't Apple afraid that Samsung could steal their chip designs? Do they pick Samsung because they simply have no other option?
Because there are IP laws that companies won't blatantly violate. External appearance notwithstanding.
The same reason Netflix uses Amazon's AWS services extensively, even though they are competitors. It is cheaper and easier to use Samsung.
Chips are just rectangles, and they're not even rounded. Therefore Apple has no valid claim on any chip design. /s
Chips are just rectangles, and softwares are just bits.
At a guess, I imagine it's really difficult to rip off a chip design just by looking at raw circuit designs (unless you're copying the entire chip). Wouldn't it take a great amount of expertise to look at some plans for a chip and say "oh, that's why it works so well!"?
It works so well mostly because it works only with other Apple hardware and software. They have up to 10 designs to optimize. That are fairly close to each other.
I think the threat of Apple taking their business elsewhere is larger then any gain from "stealing" the chip design.
The rift is a fabrication.
Most prior Apple designs have been close to stock ARM core implementations coupled with a PowerVR GPU. There hasn't been much if anything to steal, given that Samsung also licenses PowerVR GPUs and is also an ARM licensee.
The A7 is interesting in that it's the first mainstream 64-bit part, but I see Samsung being far more interested in the A53/A57 (designs that Samsung gets straight from ARM) than the A7. The A7, if rumors are true, is a sort of hybrid approach to use one of the next generation, 64-bit ARM cores early, similar to what Qualcomm does.
EDIT: ARM nomenclature is such a mess. The A7 runs ARMv7 or ARMv8 using a sort-of A57 dual-core architecture, but should not be confused with the ARMv7 Cortex-A7.
The A7 is not a hybrid approach. A7 is an ARMv8 chip (it implements the ARMv8 ISA), but not an ARM design (that's the difference between the processor license (can use ARM-designed cores) and the architecture license (can design own core implementing ARM ISA). Apple and Qualcomm have both licenses. There's nothing "hybrid" about using your architecture license.
ARMv8 provides two architectures: AArch64 and AArch32. Implementors can implement either or both. AArch64 is the brand new architecture while AArch32 is backwards-compatible with ARMv7-A. If both are implemented, it's possible to switch between AArch32 and AArch64 on the fly at specific change points, giving the ability to run AArch32 (= ARMv7) applications seamlessly on an AArch64 kernel (or an AArch32 guest os in an AArch64 hypervisor).
The A7 implements both, so do the A53 and A57.
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Or indeed the ARM7, which is ARMv4.
Up until the A5 the chips were designed and built by Samsung (from relatively standard ARM references). Apple hasn't done anything particularly exciting since.
The A7 seems pretty exciting to people who pay attention to these things: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review
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They are afraid of this, and are moving away from Samsung as fast as they can, but indeed for now, Samsung is the only option.
It's also fun that they found the M7, considering that the initial teardown left iFixit with the impression that it was just some marketing buzzword for a part of the A7. As has been mentioned in the thread, it is still an off-the-shelf component, but at least we know the truth now (that the "M7" really still is a separate IC).
IMHO Samsung and Apple compete on marketing and not in technology. That's why you can find Samsung chips in Apple devices.
So, the vertical integration Samsung has in the manufacturing process is not great competitive advantage. However, Apple is strongly vertical integrated in the retail side. This makes a difference.
made != manufactured
Title is a bit confusing.
Samsung as a chip fab is not the same Samsung that designs phones. They fall under the same name umbrella, but likely they have individual targets to meet annually, and Apple is one of the biggest chip consumers in town. It's a good fit, I never get why people are surprised by that.