Quarterly chip demand for iPhone is predicted to surpass 50 million units in the second half of this year as Apple begins to stockpile next-generation processors and other chips for 2017 iPhones, trade publication DigiTimes said Wednesday. Chip orders should hit a total of between 220 million and 230 million units between the end of the second quarter and the beginning of the third. This implies strong projected demand for the OLED-based iPhone 8 and the iterative LCD-based iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus updates.
According to the report, the following suppliers will build various chips for 2017 iPhones:
- ADI
- Broadcom
- Cirrus Logic
- Cypress
- NXP
- Qualcomm
- STMicroelectronics
- Texas Instruments
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC), which churns out iPhone 7’s A10 Fusion processors, should exclusively fabricate Apple’s custom-designed A11 processor for the upcoming iPhone series.
According to Statista’s handy chart seen above, the following companies depend on Apple for up to three-quarters of their total sales:
- Dialog Semiconductor (power management chips)
- Cirrus Logic (audio chips)
- Foxconn (manufacturing)
- Japan Display (display panels)
- Glu Mobile (mobile games)
- Imagination Technologies (GPU designs)
TSMC recently promised to ramp up production of ten-nanometer chips in the second half of 2017. The semiconductor foundry expects the node to account for about ten percent of its total wafer sales during the six-month period.
Source: DigiTimes