#chipgate: Is your 6S A9 chip Samsung or TSMC?
To each iPhone release, its own -gate: after last year’s #bendgate, #chipgate is trending on Twitter.
What are we talking about?
Both Samsung and TSMC were contracted by Apple to manufacture the A9 chip found in the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
Samsung uses a 14 nanometer process, TSMC a 16 nanometer process. Surprisingly, early tests have revealed the TSMC chip to be the better one: slightly speedier, and allowing for a decently superior battery life.
Why does this matter?
Consumers do not get to choose which chip they get, and the ones ending up with the Samsung A9 are starting to cry foul.
How do I tell which chip is in my phone?There’s an app for that, but we won’t link to it here. It isn’t distributed on the App Store app, and we advise against installing unofficial apps for security reasons.
Our own iMazing desktop software can tell you which chip you have. Our 15 day trial version will do the trick, no need to purchase anything or to register – simply download iMazing here and install on your PC or Mac.
- Launch iMazing
- Connect your iPhone 6s or 6s Plus
- Unlock the phone and respond ‘Trust’ to the ‘Trust this computer’ prompt if needed
- Once your phone connects, select Get Info and find the Hardware Model field, just like in the screenshot below.
Samsung Chips: N66AP (6s Plus) or N71AP (6s)
TSMC Chips: N66mAP (6s Plus) or N71mAP (6s)
We’d like to thank Scott for the tip ( @ranvel ).
Some technical details were pulled from this MacRumours article.
