TSMC Starts Trial Production of Apple A6 Processor?

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co has reportedly begun trial production of the A6 processor for Apple, according to CENS.com. Production design should be finalized by Q1 2012 with the processor becoming available for public release in Q2 at the earliest.

Accordingly, TSMC has applied its newest 28-nanometer process and 3D stacking technologies to produce the next-generation processor A6, which is based on the ARM architecture and will undergo TSMC's cutting-edge silicon interposer and bump on trace (BOT) methodologies. Industry insiders said that the manufacturing will help to pump considerable momentum into TSMC's business growth starting next year, though the company has yet to comment on the deal for the moment.


A general depression in the industry freed up TSMC's manufacturing capacity normally booked by the likes of Nvidia and Qualcomm, opening the door for collaboration with Apple.

Back in July, Reuters also reported that TSMC had started trial production of the A6 saying that the company's actual orders for the chips would depend on its yield rate, or the amount of chips per batch that come out with no defects.

[via Rene]