Word on the street has it that Apple has started to receive the very first samples of its next-generation A9 chipset from Samsung’s plant over in Austin, Texas. It seems that both Samsung and Apple are willing to look beyond their past skirmishes at the courtroom to ensure that future Apple hardware on the mobile front will be able to enjoy the fruits of the 14nm FinFET production process. Of course, one cannot help but speculate that the new A9 chipset that will rely on the 14nm production process will most likely see action in an upcoming iPhone model, perhaps dubbed at the iPhone 7 or the iPhone 6s for the lack of a better description?
It has been said that mass production of Apple’s new A9 chipset will, in all probability, be split between Samsung and TSMC. Needless to say, a shift to a new production process would more often than not be accompanied by a drop in power consumption, without sacrificing on performance – but rather, offer an increase simultaneously. The performance improvements do seem to be less incremental than before, but hopefully this does not mean that Apple would skimp on the A9’s graphics and co-processing departments as there are bound to be some pleasant surprises in those areas.
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