Apple is slowly slowly building up their huge required supply of 64 bit A9 quad core Apple 64 Bit Chipsets, to go into a new wave of Apple big tablets and small laptops when they splash them all out just in time for Christmas, 2015. Production is VERY SLOW right now as the 14nm lithography process isn't fully refined yet.
Apple is using up 2 vendors to do this 64 bit 14nm buildup, TSMC and Samsung, both of whom are dedicating one full line apiece under contract until the massive Apple build up is completely done. And yes, it will take about a full year to do that build up as 14nm is very slow right now.
TSMC is having trouble with their 14nm though, and has talked Apple into an intermediate grade of chip at 20nm (to be called the A8) in order to make the massive Christmas 2014's shipments which are DUE NOW !!!
This Apple Christmas contractually belongs to TSMC, so you will get a 20mn A8 instead of an A9 this year.Qualcomm is shipping their "lesser" 28nm A53 64 bit LITTLE quad core design on their new 64 bit chipset family in real phones and tablets as we speak -- with absolutely no fuss or noise coming from Qualcomm at all in doing so.
(Qualcomm was smart to stick with 28nm at this point in time, to get some real experience using the A53/57 core schedulers, drivers and gpu sharing tricks while integrating all of that into the rest of the Qualcomm fully integrated on core processes)
Samsung has the first production lots of their new 20nm 64 bit HexaCore chipsets built, using 4 each A53 for the littles and two whopping strong A57s as the heavy hitters, along with the very best of the new Mali 624 graphics core family. These chipsets are being built into new Samsung phones as we speak.
Samsung's first 14nm line is working and is producing A9's for Apple, just very slowly.
ARM and Linaro are actually putting out a full program developers hardware tool set this time around, using a
standardized Linaro 64 bit Android build which is a prequel to the Google release --- but this must happen NOW to give game developers, etc. a tool to actually use in their development workups so their optimized 64 bit software will be ready for the big 64 bit ARM explosion.
By putting out the ARM STANDARDS Hardware Board out early, driven by Linaro STANDARDS Android software with all the hardware/software tricks correctly working, ARM hopes to keep Google straight as well.
Yes, Google and ARM do share some of the heat for what happened with the old Samsung 5410 Octa, along with Samsung's big load of blame for rushing last generation's "mightiest Samsung 5410 Octa" to market
before it was ready just so Samsung could be "first to market" with a big/LITTLE octacore.
Plus, Samsung hacked up the 5410 hard macro design by throwing in a VR graphics core set which threw the 5410 into a completely nonstandard design category on top of Samsung simply pushing it into the marketplace too too early.
http://liliputing.com/2014/07/arm-introduces-juno-board-64-bit-armv8-developm...
Look closely at that development board, this 64 bit ARM standard chipset really can support every sort of memory style, hard drive interface, I/O interface, expansion card slot, video standard, etc. etc. etc. you could ever dream or wish for on a laptop or a desktop device right from the get go. Yep, 64 bit ARM is also headed for PC space, this is obvious from all the PC style I/O stuff it will support right out of the box.The HexaCore 64 bit chipset used in this ARM STANDARDS board is the bone stock ARM hexacore A53/A57 hard macro design that Samsung bought, so expect it to be pretty much SAME SAME as the Samsung chipset when the Samsung 64 bit comes out soon. Two A57s can easily match the real workload capacity of four of the old generation A15 big cores, and the A53 littles are both more powerful and more energy efficient than the old A7s used to be.
Plus all the multi-core processor/GPU compute sharing tricks are all worked out completely now and are kicking on all cylinders on this initial 64 bit release.
Note that this ARM organized COMPLETELY STANDARDIZED, EVERYTHING WORKING rather extensive trial run approach is really really intended to prevent the Octacore bobble that happened at the start of the last generation, where the big/Little core scheduler hardware/software still needed some development work when the first released Samsung 5410 Octacore chipset actually hit the street.
(came out sorta lacking, as it turned out)
Which of course caused the resulting rapid replacement of the 5410 with the improved 5420 and then again by the improved 5422. Such stupid bullshite will HOPEFULLY not be required by this new 64 bit ARM generation because ARM is now out in front conducting the marching band and is leading that band with the FULLY PUBLISHED, STANDARDIZED EVERYTHING IS WORKING APPROACH. So, if Samsung's customized, tweeked Android interface and modified/tweeked hard macro based chipset design leave something out or leave something not working right, it is ALL ON SAMSUNG THIS TIME AROUND.
Well, this may have been partially true last time as well, but nobody could prove it as there was no standards board and no standard software to compare it to. This time they can.
(pay attention Samsung, it is all on you if you screw up again).ARM intends to give Intel no similar big whoopsie bobble room to work with at the start of the ARM 64 bit implementation wave, and ARM will still likely be done with their 64 bit first wave before Intel can "buddy build" anything of consequence for phones or tablets that could derail ARM's 64 bit push.
Intel knows this, and is currently focusing all their effort in on being the King of the Chromebooks and Chromeboxes, since their processors currently fit that particular niche very very well at the 22nm that Intel can do.
Intel knows they have nothing at all still for phones, or nothing much compellingly good for the next generation of tablet chipsets either.Note that this ARM 64 bit wave of new stuff includes the brand new 14nm production lines that are slowly cranking up and running (still somewhat sluggishly though) at TSMC, Global Foundaries and at Samsung.
Intel is still vapor talking their grandiose 14nm plans, but has nothing in production at this time.
ARM is in real production now at 14nm.
Yup, the new ARM 14nm lines are out there, and they are running as we speak. They will pick up more speed as the new process kinks all get worked out.
Thank you Apple, for paying for all these finishing touches on the 14nm lithography processes (right kind of you, it really is) ....As Sherlock Holmes would say, "Watson, get your pistol -- the game is afoot !!!"
====================
The ARM 64 bit hardware is here, the Linaro STANDARD 64 bit Android software is here -- we are now looking for the next full windowing, multi-user
general purpose 64 bit ARM OS to appear shortly.
Now is the time for Microsoft to stage that comeback, if ever they can do so.
Google,
where are you as your big party begins to commence? What exactly is Android L and how does it play against the new 64 bit wave of ARM chipsets that can very obviously run a laptop or a desktop?
Intel is now betting it is all going to be Chrome going out into the future and they are trying their best to "own" the Chrome world going forward.
Android L should scare MS to death, as should that new ARM standards board that screams "laptop/PC" with all them card slots and old PC I/O types that it supports natively.
MS is still mostly trapped in x86 land and if Android L is a real hit, then that trap will continue to hold them paralyzed.