三星工艺坏了苹果A9处理器的名声？

稍微关注行业的技术控都该知道苹果A9处理器有两个版本，分别出自三星和台积电。甚至有专门的app产品可以分辨你的iPhone 6s采用的是三星的还是台积电的版本。经测试这两个版本的处理器性能一致，因为两个版本的逻辑设计完全一样并采用相同时钟频率，在数字逻辑中只有1、0两种状态，而两个版本的处理器芯片不会产品足以让1、0状态发生改变的巨大差距。

那么在模拟部分呢，近日疯传的功耗和电池续航问题就显示出两者的差异了。

By this time, anyone with a pulse in the tech industry knows that Apple has dual sourced the A9 processor for the Iphone 6S, from both Samsung and TSMC. There are even apps to tell whether your 6S has a Samsung or TSMC part in it. People have run performance comparisons and concluded that the processing performance is the same, which is entirely expected as we are sure both parts have the exact same logic design and are clocked at the same speed. Ones and zeros are ones and zeros on anyone's chips....all things are equal in the digital world....

Well...people have started to check in on the analog world of power consumption (where there can be a difference) comparing Samsung Iphones to TSMC Iphones, and low and behold the Samsung and TSMC made chips may not be quite so identical. Initial, amateur reports indicate a significant difference with Samsung parts consuming more power....far more..

Here is an example of one such test result:

Samsung A9 versus TSMC A9 power consumption tests

We would remind readers That TSMC has made a very big deal about their power consumption/leakage advantage over other competitive manufacturing processes. TSMC has claimed up to a 20% power advantage in their 16nm process which may jive with these unconfirmed comparison results.

Any measurable difference could be a problem for Apple..
The initial results look like a significant power consumption difference between the Samsung A9 and the TSMC A9, potentially measured in hours rather than minutes. Even if final analysis shows a 10% differential or less it could still pose a problem as Apple could start to see 6S owners returning their Samsung 6S for a "better" TSMC 6S. The bad press could really hurt Apple and its flawless image very badly.

We think the difference better be less than 5% or problems will start. A 10% differential in power consumption would be bad, a 20% difference could be horrible and so on...costs and losses could mount up for Apple for returns, repairs etc;.... Even if these initial reports prove to be untrue and there is no significant power difference just the rumor mill buzz of two types of 6Ss can cause issues.

Cottage industry for phone testers...
There are already different apps that can tell which processor you have in your Iphone. One even reports the results back to a website that keeps score of TSMC versus Samsung parts. We can imagine that cell phone repair shops will charge customers $20 to see if they should return their beloved Iphone because it has a potentially flawed Samsung A9.....

Faster than you can say class action lawsuit
Lets start the stopwatch ticking on Oct 7th at noon and see how long before the first law firm brings a class action suit against Apple and their defective Iphone 6S. Will Apple have a recall? How will they handle the PR? It could be a circus of TV people interviewing people at Apple stores as they return their phones....just in time for the holiday season

Conspiracy theories?
We can only imagine the first conspiracy theory that Samsung did it on purpose to sabotage Apple's phone business in favor of their own.....

Blowback on Apple due to supplier gamesmanship...
Apple is well known to press suppliers to the breaking point and beyond. Apple went to a new extreme and got very cute by dual sourcing the most critical component in the phone this way playing Samsung and TSMC off against one another. Could this now have blown up in their face? Who tested and vetted both parts at Apple? Where's the quality control?