After dropping Samsung to source its new iPhone 7’s A10 CPU exclusively from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) earlier this year, Apple has made TSMC the exclusive manufacturer of its upcoming A11 chip as well, Chinese-language site Economic Daily News reports.
Apple split its A9 chip orders between both Samsung and TSMC, but a number of reports claimed the TSMC version of the A9 provided significantly better battery life than the Samsung version in at least some benchmark tests.
Unnamed sources said the new A11 chip will be built with TSMC’s new 10nm manufacturing process, with the company starting small-volume production as early as the second quarter of 2017.
