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Every time a new Apple device ships, it'southward interesting to run into how manufacturing technology has advanced. This year is no exception. The Apple device teardown revealed a number of interesting details and confirmed a rumor we'd heard before — Intel did indeed win at least some of the iPhone 7's modem business (Intel builds the modem within the AT&T and T-Mobile devices, denoted as the A1778 and A1784). The Verizon and Sprint products (A1660 and A1661) apply a Qualcomm modem.

Chipworks, which performed the teardown and assay, doesn't swoop into the implications of a dual-sourced modem betwixt Intel and Qualcomm, just this may have applied repercussions depending on how you intend to utilize the device. Because Intel'due south modems don't back up CDMA, you won't be able to take AT&T or T-Mobile devices to non-GSM networks. The Qualcomm modems, in contrast, support both GSM and CDMA, meaning they should exist compatible on whatever carrier network beyond the country.

Even so, this is a huge plume in Intel's cap. The company hasn't had great luck pushing its XMM modems into high-profile device wins — at least, none it has prominently discussed. Apple'due south sheer volume should drive materially higher profits for Chipzilla's networking sectionalization.

Revised_A10_die

Unlike the iPhone 6s, which featured dual-sourcing between Samsung and TSMC, the iPhone seven may be a TSMC-simply pattern. Die size on the new chip is 125mm sq, a twenty% size increase over the A9's 104.5mm sq (at TSMC, the Samsung variant was smaller). Co-ordinate to Chipworks, the A10 is considerably more dumbo than the A9 thanks to better packing on Apple tree'southward part — a straight calibration-out of the A9 would've left Apple with a chip nigh 150mm sq, as compared to a relatively graceful 125mm sq.

The scrap is built on TSMC's 16FFC process. The "C" stands for compact, and the new node is intended for use in mainstream and low-ability markets. Compared with 16nm FF+ (second-generation FinFET), FFC reduces SRAM area, leakage, and supports ultra-low power voltage modes (downward to 0.6v). The diagram above shows Chipworks guess on where specific features are located, after Anandtech helped them narrow downwards potential feature locations on the "little" CPU cores.

The battery is a 1960mAh unit of measurement, compared with the 1810mAh pack used in the iPhone 6s. The batteries that failed on Samsung'south Galaxy Notation 7, in contrast, are near twice this size. Overall, the iPhone vii is a significant manufacturing pace forward for Apple, a solid debut for TSMC's 16FFC process node, and a major win for Intel, which can claim a significant pattern win for its ain modem engineering science.