Nothing like seeing where the trade restrictions applied by the United States are going to include all the changes what Apple suppliers do (decided by themselves or by Cupertino). In just a few hours, we learned two news about the components of future Apple products and where are they going to be made from now.
Memory made in the heart of the USA
The first movement comes from a decision by Apple itself, which will then ask production of memory chips for iPhone to Samsung. So far, the company in charge was YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technologies), but the United States decided to add this company to a blacklist for apparently violating export regulations.
Samsung will start producing the NAND Flash memory chips that Apple needs from 2023, which the end user should not notice either in terms of terminal performance or iPhone delivery times.
On the other hand, we also learned that TSMC will produce its 3nm chips for Apple in Arizonawhere the supplier is already close to completing a factory for it and from where 5nm chips will also continue to be manufactured.
Move this production from Asia to the United States guarantees a certain availability of these components after a turbulent few months in which China’s measures to curb COVID and other geopolitical tensions resulted in insufficient units of the iPhone 14 Pro for all global demand. In addition to being a great favor in the United States: the Arizona plant will generate many jobs for its inhabitants.
Again, these won’t be things that end users will notice, but are gestures that Apple and its vendors are making. looking for longer term production security. It remains to be seen whether this affects the price of these components and therefore the final price of future iPhones.
