With this year’s A9 chipset, it was discovered that the chipsets were manufactured by both Samsung and TSMC. This wouldn’t be a big deal since Apple typically sources from various manufacturers, but it was discovered that the chipsets were of different sizes and that the TSMC-made chipset even offered better battery life (even if it was marginally).
That being said, a new rumor has surfaced in which it claims that the Cupertino company will be going with TSMC exclusively for 2016’s A10, which presumably will make its way onto the iPhone 7 handsets and with an “X” version headed for the iPads. We suppose if anything the recent issue with the A9 proved that despite TSMC using a larger process than Samsung, it still managed to beat them in terms of efficiency.
This isn’t the first time we have heard such rumors. Back in September there were talks that TSMC had secured an exclusive with Apple and that the A10 would be built on the 16nm process, which for those unfamiliar basically means that more transistors can be squeezed into the same space, resulting in an increase of efficiency and speed.
Other rumors surrounding the A10 also claim that the chipset will feature a hexa-core setup, which no doubt would be a very big leap from Apple’s current dual-core setup, but until we hear it officially, take it with a grain of salt for now.