South Korean electronics behemoth Samsung is reportedly attempting to claw back the lucrative iPhone NAND business from competitors with a new process for shielding the important flash memory from electromagnetic interference.
The company is working with U.S.- and Taiwan-based suppliers to develop a spray-on coating process for EMI shielding that meets Apple's standards, according to ETNews. Spraying the coating not only saves money, but also makes it possible to use more compact packaging for the modules themselves.
As chips shrink and logic boards become more tightly packed, the possibility of components interfering with one another increases. For this reason, Apple has moved toward more aggressive EMI shielding practices in an effort to avoid trouble.
Samsung was one of Apple's earliest partners, but lost its spot as a primary vendor of flash memory to fellow Korean firm SK Hynix more than four years ago.
In the interim, falling prices have combined with Apple's dominance of the mobile device industry to put a squeeze on the profits from Samsung's memory division. This has reportedly spurred the company to seek reconciliation with the iPhone maker.