go-Digital Blog on Digital Marketing

Apple’s Trying to Wean Itself Off of Samsung’s Chips [Apple]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/vip/~3/8O806JeMPqs/report-apples-trying-to-wean-itself-off-of-samsungs-chips

While Apple and Samsung have been duking it out over patents, there’s always been the quiet, underlying irony that Samsung makes a whole bunch of the chips Apple relies on. Now, according to reports from CNET and MacRumors, Apple’s trying to change that.

It’s not exactly surprising. Apple already hired a big chip designer out from under Samsung. Now they’re just taking the next steps.

As an industry source put it to CNET:

“The Apple-Samsung relationship has deteriorated to such a poor point that they’re just looking to fill contractual obligations, then make a change.”

That change, it seems, is moving to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company at 20 nanometers, a company that no doubt considers the giant’s business a huge boon. There are also rumors that Apple and Intel have been in talks when it comes to more advanced 14 nanometer production, though that seems further off.

A change like this doesn’t happen in an instant because it’s such a huge shift, but that makes it all the more noteworthy that it’s starting. If you thought Apple and Samsung were just going to kiss and make up, you were probably a bit deluded from the start, but this just goes to show that the rift is ever-widening. [CNET, MacRumors]

Tags: bunch, business, Change, chip designer, CNet, company, contractual obligations, gawker, Gizmodo, industry source, MacRumors, Manufacturing, nanometer, production, semiconductor, semiconductor manufacturing company, Taiwan, taiwan semiconductor manufacturing, taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company