Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s top semiconductor foundry, has reportedly shipped the first batch of the second-generation Touch ID sensors to Apple for use in the upcoming second-generation iPad Air, third-generation iPad mini and of course iPhone 6.
As iDownloadBlog exclusively reported earlier this month, code fragments in iOS 7.1 indicate that Touch ID is coming to iPads, possibly this year and to other iOS devices as well, a discovery further corroborated by previous supply chain reports…
Citing supply chain sources, component information outlet cecb2b.com [Google translate, via GforGames] reported Wednesday that TSMC has provided the first batch of Touch IDs for the iPhone 6, iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 “sometime in mid-April”.
The claim reportedly comes via sources inside Sazhou Crystal Semiconductor Technology Co., one of the two subcontractors to which TSMC outsourced backend production services, the other being TSMC’s subsidiary Xintec.
Xintec was also mentioned in a DigiTimes report last August confirming that Touch ID sensors for the then unreleased iPhone 5s were being packaged by Xintec.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo recently noted that the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 should pick up Apple’s fingerprint reader.
TSMC has been producing Touch ID sensors for the iPhone 5s at its eight-inch fabs and is believed to have started making Touch IDs for the next iPhone back in January.
Moreover, the foundry apparently landed orders for Apple’s upcoming in-house designed A8 chip amid persisting rumors of Apple looking to break its dependency on Samsung. The South Korean giant has thus far acted as an exclusive manufacturer for Apple’s A-series processors.