Status of the largest contract conductors manufacturer sometimes prevents TSMC to meet the growing needs of large customers - for example, increasing the scale of production output on a new process technology. At the stage of scaling issue with 28-nm chips from TSMC arose shortage of production capacity, which worked on the orders of Qualcomm company . Now, according to many sources, the bulk of the orders for the release of processors with 20-nm technology pulls Apple.
As explained by the site DigiTimes, in the distribution of orders between contractors, Qualcomm may be guided by political motives. For example, its 14-nm processors will entrust release Samsung company . As is known, Samsung refused to use Qualcomm Snapdragon processor 810 in its smartphone of the current generation. In addition, developed in collaboration with GlobalFoundries 14-nanometer process technology Samsung has surely mature performance.
Orders for the release of 28-nm processors Qualcomm will go to UMC and SMIC, in the second half of this year, Qualcomm will be removed from the five largest customers TSMC. In the end, a strong dependence on a single supplier is not good idea, so Qualcomm considers it appropriate to expand the circle of contractors.