Supplier TSMC is already preparing to start production of the A11 chip expected to land in Apple’s next round of iPhones, Chinese-language site Economic Daily News reports. The company is Apple’s sole supplier of the CPUs for its new devices, and is expected to begin building the components next month in order to reach 50 million units by July.
Apple split its A9 chip orders between both Samsung and TSMC, but a number of reports claimed the TSMC version of the A9 provided significantly better battery life than the Samsung version in at least some benchmark tests. The actual specifications of the A11 chip are still unknown, but TSMC is expected to use the its new 10nm manufacturing process to produce them.
The company has already showed it can use the process for large-volume production, creating chips for “MediaTek and HiSilicon Technologies in the first quarter of 2017.” [via DigiTimes]
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