Apple A6 CPU to be manufactured by TSMC in 2012?

Samsung and Apple are going head to head in a patent battle over smartphones and tablets. Samsung is though a major supplier to Apple as well. Samsung is right now manufacturing the Apple A series CPUs that power the iPad and iPhone. In May reports appeared that Apple has already found a new manufacturer for their future Ax CPUs (A6, A7, etc.) with TSMC. In a report filed on Digitimes on Friday, analyst Dan Heyler with Merrill Lynch confirms this with saying that their is a good chance TSMC winning orders for the Apple A6 CPU. The deal between TSMC and Apple seems not closed yet and also it is not sure if all A6 CPUs will come from TSMC or if Samsung stays still in the game. 

If this decision is depending on how the patent battle panes out is not clear. Samsung also supplies other components like flash memory to Apple. It is very hard to entirely replace them.

By the way. the Digitimes report has a strange angle. It highlights that tablet CPUs only account 4% of TSMC's revenues in 2012. If TSMC wins the contract to make Apple A6 CPUs, than we are looking at not only tablets. The A6 is also going to be in the future iPhone 6. The iPhone is still out-selling the iPad by a long shot.

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