• TSMC Executive: Apple Leads Move to 64-bit Smartphone Chips

    by
    Akshay Masand
    Published on 2014-04-18 04:35 AM
    3 Comments Comments


    Mark Liu, co-CEO of major chip company TSMC, has stated that Apple leads the mobile industry’s move to 64-bit processors within smartphones. According to CNET, Liu spoke at the TSMC quarterly results meeting recently and said:

    If you observe the mobile device industry, in the past six months we do see the…conversion to 64-bit [in processors] after the Apple [64-bit A7 processor] announcement.
    Apple was the first mobile manufacturer to introduce 64-bit chips in smartphones because of iPhone 5s’ A7 processors, and the device also has a GPU and dual-core architecture in the design of the chip. Qualcomm followed Apple’s A7 only months after, and showed off the Snapdragon 808 and 810 processors with built in LTE for Android smartphones for early 2015 release.

    A Qualcomm employee stated back in December,

    The 64-bit Apple chip hit us in the gut. Not just us, but everyone, really. We were slack-jawed, and stunned, and unprepared.
    And an Asia-Pacific semiconductor analyst at Barclays, Andrew Lu announced:

    Starting in the second half of 2014, we expect 64-bit ARM application processors and central processing unit upgrades for smartphones and the micro server market, due to better cost, improved power and thermal performance, and enhanced speed.
    Investors at the TSMC conference were told recently by Liu that big changes are underway at the chip maker, but the company has been rumored to be one of the suppliers for the A8 chip for the iPhone 6 for the fall, which makes what Liu said an interesting comment.

    Source: CNet
    This article was originally published in forum thread: TSMC Executive: Apple Leads Move to 64-bit Smartphone Chips started by Akshay Masand View original post
    1. Categories:
    2. iPhone,
    3. Apple
    Comments 3 Comments
    1. Ambi_Valence's Avatar
      Ambi_Valence - 2014-04-18, 08:12 AM
      I remember the 'New 64 bit Mac Pro'. I hope Apple aren't short changing us all with semantics and that this isn't the same kind of processor that can't boot a 64 bit kernel.
    1. buggsy2's Avatar
      buggsy2 - 2014-04-18, 02:49 PM
      Mark has only now figured this out?
    1. slim.jim's Avatar
      slim.jim - 2014-04-18, 04:00 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by Ambi_Valence View Post
      I remember the 'New 64 bit Mac Pro'. I hope Apple aren't short changing us all with semantics and that this isn't the same kind of processor that can't boot a 64 bit kernel.
      You are confused. The "32bit MacPro" processor can absolutely boot a 64bit kernel. The issue is that the 2006 and early 2008 Mac Pros have a 32bit EFI ROM. Starting with OS X 10.8 Apple no longer included a 32bit Kernel so the 32bit EFI ROM cannot communicate with the 64bit kernel. The processor however is 100% 64bit compatible. There is a project called Sixty-four On Thirty-two (SFOTT) that uses a modified boot.efi to bridge the communication between a 32bit EFI rom and a 64bit kernel. I have a 2006 Mac Pro that runs Mavericks natively. Using the modified boot.efi I have an installer that will install Mavericks natively on a 2006 Mac Pro from a DVD or USB thumb drive.

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