TSMC's 7-nanometer process is super-smooth, attracting big-money customers to grab orders. Huawei's Kirin 990 chip grabs the latest 7-nanometer EUV process. Apple A13's film has a big accident, using only the general 7-nanometer process, with advanced process. From the technical point of view, Kirin 990 performance should be strong against Apple A13, I did not expect to be stumbled by A13, is the 7-nanometer EUV process not strong?
TechWeb reported that the Kirin 990, which was highly anticipated, used the latest 7-nanometer EUV, but due to the influence of the integrated 5G, the power consumption could not be too high, and the final performance still lost to the Apple A13.
As for the Apple A13, why only use the general 7nm process? There are two kinds of sayings in the market. First, the price of TSMC's 7-nanometer EUV process is too high. Apple's dismal revenue last year was attributed to the fact that mobile phones were too expensive to sell. In order to save costs, the EUV process was abandoned. Another explanation was that TSMC's 7-nm EUV capacity was insufficient. With the cooperation with TSMC for many years, Apple, the largest customer, is unlikely to push the order, so this is not reasonable.
According to the report, only TSMC and Samsung have 7-nanometer EUV production lines. Even if Samsung's new processor Exynos 9825 adopts 7-nanometer EUV, its performance is only tied with Qualcomm Snapdragon 855. In addition, Samsung also broke 7-nanometer EUV yield. Insufficient problems, so TSMC's 7nm EUV's excellent performance and yield is still dominated by the leading position. Next year, it will enter the 5nm process, and TSMC will set off another wave of customers to grab the goods.