Apple’s Next-Gen A9 iPhone Chip Order Again Pegged for Samsung

When it comes to the Apple news cycle, nothing flip flops more than the prospect of which company has landed the work order for the manufacturing the company’s next generation Ax processors.

One day it’s TSMC and then another day it’s back to Samsung. According to South Korea’s Maeil Business newspaper, Re/code relays it’s now Samsung that gets the chip orders for the next iPhone:

While Apple had hoped to rely more heavily on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to fabricate the Ax family of processors used in its iOS devices, the company has turned to Samsung for its next-generation A9 chip, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

That’s because Samsung holds a technological edge over TSMC when it comes to the latest manufacturing process. Samsung has managed to shrink the size of the transistors on its chips to 14 nanometers — effectively packing more processing power into a smaller space and consuming less power. TSMC is still at 20 nanometers.

Here’s a brief timeline of A9 chip manufacturer rumours:

• July 2013: Samsung to supply Apple 14 nm A9 in 2015
• July 2014: Samsung and Globalfoundries to provide A9 chip in 2015
• October 2014: Samsung said to product the A9 chip on 14 nm process
• November 2014: TSMC said to supply lion’s share of A9 chips
• December 2014: Samsung to start making first batch of 14 nm A9 chips
• December 2014: TSMC might be main supplier of A9 chips
• January 2015: Samsung wins majority of A9 chip orders (Maeil Business)