Samsung will provide Apple with quad-core A6 chips to power the next iPhone, The Korea Times reported on Monday. “Apple has been in talks with Samsung over shipment of its A6 quad-core mobile processor chips to be used in the next iPhone,” an anonymous parts supplier executive told The Korea Times. “It appears that Apple clearly has concluded that Samsung remains a critical business partner.” The two have been locked in legal battles around the globe, and both firms have accused the ot...

Apple will favor Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company over Samsung to power its next-generation iOS devices, DigiTimes said on Friday. The report aligns with an earlier Reuters report that suggested TSMC would build the next-generation A6 processor for future iPhone and iPad devices. TSMC will use its 20nm and 28nm technologies to create the new chips but may not begin supplying Apple with parts until next year. The Taiwan-based chip builder may have inked a deal to supply the successor to the A6 chip, ...

NTT DoCoMo, Fujitsu, NEC and Panasonic are discussing a joint venture with Samsung that could be created as early as next year, Reuters reported recently. The companies will develop new smartphone baseband chips in an attempt to compete directly with Qualcomm, which currently has an 80% grip on the baseband chip industry. NTT DoCoMo will be the majority owner in the Japan-based joint venture and the total investment is expected to be about $390 million. The joint venture will help each firm cut down procureme...

Qualcomm announced that it has purchased gesture recognition technology from GestureTek on Monday. “Applications processors are enabling a range of new ways for consumers to interface with their home entertainment and mobile devices,” said Qualcomm executive vice president and group president Steve Mollenkopf. “Our acquisition of key technology and assets from GestureTek will strengthen Qualcomm’s smartphone product portfolio and enable our customers to launch products with new and compelling user...

Qualcomm said it expects to ship between 120 million and 125 million chips during the quarter ending in September, a figure that is lower than the 130 million units MLM Partners LLC analyst Tero Kuittinen expected the company to move. The lower projection hit Qualcomm in late trading on Tuesday when its stock price fell 3.8%. Qualcomm blamed the lower than expected forecast on a weak European economy and said that consumers there aren’t buying new phones as quickly. “Chip units for autumn are ligh...

Apple may have delayed the iPhone 5 launch until next year due to an overheating dual-core A5 chip, a new report from Sohu.com suggests. Rumor has it (and it’s purely a rumor right now) that Apple will instead launch the iPhone 5 later this year or early next when the A6 chip is available — or after it figures out the A5 overheating problems. Sohu.com also said Apple will instead introduce a slightly upgraded “iPhone 4S” device, with the same form factor as the iPhone 4, in September or Oc...

Notebook Italia recently posted a hands-on video showing off several features of Sony’s S1 Android Honeycomb tablet. The S1 was announced in April — alongside the S2 — and is set for a fall release, but Sony hasn’t provided many chances for press to check out the device first-hand. As the video shows, the S1 will be the first tablet to run Sony’s PlayStation Suite software, an application that provides access to Sony PlayStaton certified games and content, such as the Green Hornet traile...

Already bored by these anemic dual-core 1GHz smartphone processor offerings? You’re in luck. Korean blog MK is reporting that a “high-ranking” Samsung official has indicated that the company is “planning to release a 2GHz dual core CPU-equipped smartphone by next year.” The same official went on to tout that the new silicon would “have the data processing capacities of a regular PC.” If you’re not into Samsung hardware, fear not. The report notes that the compan...

Rumors surrounding an NFC-equipped iPhone from Apple date back to last summer, when Apple hired NFC expert Benjamin Vigier as its Commerce Product Manager. Speculation surrounding how Apple might use NFC dates back even further, of course, considering the many NFC-related Apple patents that have been revealed in the past. On Monday, the flames were rekindled yet again as The New York Times reported Apple will include NFC chips from Qualcomm in a future version of its iPhone handset. The Times’ report do...

Well what do we have here. A fresh iFixit tear-down of the Verizon iPhone has yielded a surprise: Apple included the Qualcomm MDM6600 chip; a chip that supports high-speed HSPA and CDMA frequencies.“This is the same chipset as the Droid Pro world phone,” writes iFixit. “It supports both GSM and CDMA—which means that Apple *could* have supported GSM!”This certainly is an interesting revelation, and jives with previous rumors suggesting that Apple may be planning to develop a singular...

Reuters is reporting that Microsoft has just inked a new deal with chip manufacturer ARM that will give Microsoft “access to [the] ARM architecture instead of licensing products one by one.” Analysts are already beginning to speculate that this could be the first step in a plan that would have Microsoft designing its own ARM base processor; similar to Apple’s A4 chip based on ARM technology. “With closer access to the ARM technology we will be able to enhance our research and developme...

Wow. Creative looks to be building up to what will either be the most exciting announcement of CES, or yet another let down from the world of portable players. According to a new email sent from Creative to those who signed up for updates on the Zii website, something massive is brewing at Creative that has over 10 years of work, 10,000 man-years and over one billion dollars behind it. That’s a pretty impressive investment, Creative. Here’s the email:Zii is StemCell ComputingThank you and congratu...

Everything you know is about to change… That is the tag line found on a Creative teaser page tied to a brand new processor the company will be unveiling at CES next month. Dubbed Zii, the new processor comes along side a newly-trademarked phrase, “Stemcell computing,” which bears absolutely no meaning at this point in time. As such, the only thing we can say with any certainty about the upcoming announcement is that Creative does not intend to market the new chip to pro-lifers. Marcom initia...