iPhone 6 rumor rollup for the week ending June 28
The photoleaks of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 5S – or something become a photophlood this week, revealing that, among other things, the Next iPhone will indeed have a battery.
On the smaller-is-better-nanometer front, there was new hope that the iPhone 6 will have a chip made with a 20-nanometer process. Which would mean, well, good news. Also, a reminder that iPhone 6 and possibly iPad 5 will be announced Saturday June 29 amid a celebration of “Original Passion, New Ideas” even though as of Friday afternoon no one apparently has been invited. And the iOSphere gets to see a Chinese iPhone 5S assembly line in action, more or less.
You read it here second.
__________”The [iPhone 5S] handset will launch with the same design as its predecessor. It will come with barely updated components and will lack the feature set that would put it on an even playing field with the Samsung Galaxy S 4. In other words, the iPhone 5S could very well disappoint those who have come to expect big things from Apple.”
~ Don Reisinger, eWeek.com, in his “news analysis” of the design, components, and feature set of Apple’s unannounced next iPhone relies entirely on rumors to confidently conclude it will be a failure.__________
iPhone 6 in 2014 will have a 20-nanometer system-on-chip
If it’s smaller, it’s better.
The iOSphere was thrilled when DigiTimes posted yet another anonymously sourced story that says Apple has signed a deal with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to create the next Apple A-series chips using 20, 16 and 10 nanometer process nodes. Both TSMC and its integrated chip design service partner, Global UniChip, declined comment.
DigiTimes’ “industry sources” for this post said that the 20nm process will be used for building Apple’s A8 chip, starting in small volumes in July 2013, with new equipment being installed to process 50,000 wafers in the first calendar quarter of 2014. DigiTimes: “The upcoming Apple A8 processor will be found in a new iPhone slated for release in early 2014, and the A9/A9X chips will be used in the newer-generation iPhone and iPad products, the sources claimed.”
TSMC has a Webpage on its 20nm technology.
There’s been speculation but no details about a purported A7 chip for the 2013 iPhone. Just this week, there were photographs alleged to be of the interior of an early iPhone 5S prototype (more on this below). But apparently little could actually be learned from the processor shown in the photos.
DigiTimes posted in April about TSMC and Apple moving forward with 20nm. Picking up on the post, MacRumors talked to former TSMC director Kurt Wolf, who said that Apple’s chip options for 2013 products included “smaller and more efficient versions of the existing A6 family based on a 28-nm process rather than the current 32-nm process, a more substantially modified A6 to boost power, or a new A7 chip built on the 28-nm process before being moved to 20-nm next year.”
