Apple becomes the largest customer of the Taiwanese manufacturer of processors (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) TSMC, according to the resource DigiTimes citing anonymous sources traditional.
TSMC has been producing A8 processors for the iPhone and iPad, and probably will produce processors Apple A9, planned for 2015.
TSMC has lost some orders Qualcomm, which chose 14-nm lithography technology Samsung. Meanwhile, TSMC will continue cooperation with Apple, and the issue will be A9 processor technology 16 nm FinFET Plus. As expected, the mass production technology of 16 nm and 16 nm FinFET FinFET Plus starts in the second half of 2015.
We recall not so long ago, the Taiwanese media reported that TSMC may be left without orders from Apple and Qualcomm. Later, board chairman Morris Chang said that next year the company outperformed the market share in the amount of chips based on 14/16-nm technologies, but returns lost in 2016-2017. Thus he confirmed the rumors that Samsung has managed to get an order for the production of 14-nm FinFET chips for Qualcomm, one of the main customers TSMC.
Analysts predict that the chip manufacturing technology with topological 20 and 16 nm will be the main growth factors TSMC over the next three years.