Apple has confirmed that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will start production on Apple's A11 chip next month. With a production capacity of 50 million units, the target is to complete the chip production before July. A recent report circling the internet noted that the "A11" chips are set to power an upcoming iPhone in September and will be built on a 10nm FinFET process. This isn't the company's first 10nm chip production on the same process in the fall last year and started shipping them to other customers in the first quarter of 2017.
The schedule for production and delivery is just the same as for the Apple iPhone 7. Though, the company is expected to deliver 100 million "A11" chips before the end of this year, slightly ahead of what was delivered by the end of 2017 for the A10 Fusion. Moreover, details surrounding the iPhone 7S, 7S plus and the 10-year anniversary edition iPhone 8 continue to surface. Expected to be built on a 10-nanometre FinFET manufacturing process, the A11 chips will be equipped with "wafer-level integrated fan-out" technology. According to a source, TMSC will be the exclusive supplier of the A11 chip, having completed the design last summer. The manufacturer is also the exclusive maker of the A10 chip that currently runs in the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. The jump to 10nm is set to produce more efficient power and will provide users with a faster and snappier experience.
The iPhone 7 lineup utilizes the A10 Fusion quad-core system on a chip with two high-performance cores, and as well as, two energy efficient cores. It was built with a 16nm process by TSMC. Furthermore, the "A11" appears slated for the "iPhone 7s" or "iPhone 8." Apple's "iPhone 8" is set to use a 5.8-inch edge-to-edge OLED panel which may or may not be curved, with a 5.1-inch area, the rest being dedicated to virtual buttons. Other possible features to be included in the device are a 3D facial scanner, and other sensors embedded in the front glass of the device.
