Fresh rumours by Macotakara claims that Apple might be seriously considering usage of Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon series of 400 or 800 processors for the low cost iPhone. Apple needs to save as much as possible if it has to sell a low cost iPhone and still maintain good margins over the phones. The new processors from Qualcomm have a single SoC with processor, WiFi and Bluetooth chips integrated into it thus reducing manufacturing costs by considerable amounts.
Apple is rumoured to be in talks with Taiwanese manufacturer TSMC to manufacture the new 28 nm chips. There are two different variants of Snapdragons processors, one with 3G support and one with LTE. The rumours suggest that Apple might very well go with a 3G support chip discarding LTE for the low cost iPhone for now.
China times article says
Supply Chain Industry revealed that Apple’s low-cost iPhone uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon single-chip, initially only support 3G without support for 4G LTE single-chip native support for WiFi and Bluetooth wireless networking capability, so do not need to increase the wireless network mode group. Of this chip commissioned TSMC foundry to 28 nm.
If the rumours are true then this will be Apple first move to move away from Samsung manufacturing units in a long term move. After things are in a heated situation between Apple and Samsung there have been rumours suggesting Apple to reduce dependency fro Samsung eventually.