Apple expects high demand for 'iPhone 13,' orders over 100 million A15 processors

Sources in the supply chain claim that Apple has increased its order with TSMC to make in excess of 100 million A15 processors for the forthcoming "iPhone 13."

Following previous reports that processor manufacturer TSMC has begun production of Apple's A15, a new claim says that the company has now increased its order. Reportedly, Apple had planned for up to 95 million A15 processors, but has now ordered in excess of 100 million.

According to cnBeta, sources in the supply chain say that this is partly because Apple expects high demand for the next iPhone. However, it's also said to be because the company needs to secure processors as the global chip shortage continues.

Consequently, Chinese technology blog cnBeta says (in translation) that Apple is making "every effort to prepare for production capacity." In other words, Apple doesn't want the number of produced "iPhone 13" devices to be limited by the shortage.

Separately, TSMC has already be said to be priotizing Apple and the car industry as the shortage continues. TSMC has also begun construction on a 5nm chip plant in Arizona.

The cnBeta blog does not often carry Apple news, and so has no recent track record to evalualte.

5 Comments

rcfa 1123 comments · 17 Years

About 3 years ago

May not all be for iPhones. Apple may just want to cut down on CPU diversity, and throw the A15 into all the iPads, aTV, iPhones, homePods, and call it a day, being able to fluidly shift CPUs between the various product lines to match demands. As CPUs move to a smaller scale the cost savings of using older tech may disappear.

SGilbert 9 comments · 3 Years

I do not think there is a lick of difference in the A chips from one product to another. As implied above, the cost savings would be tremendous using the same chip in all of the smaller units, just as the new M chips would be for the computer lines.

spice-boy 1450 comments · 8 Years

OMG the new feminine Siri voice sounds like a Valley girl. Can't wait for a good Brooklyn Siri.

netrox 1501 comments · 12 Years

rcfa said:

May not all be for iPhones. Apple may just want to cut down on CPU diversity, and throw the A15 into all the iPads, aTV, iPhones, homePods, and call it a day, being able to fluidly shift CPUs between the various product lines to match demands. As CPUs move to a smaller scale the cost savings of using older tech may disappear.

That's what I think as well. If Apple has gotten the ARM design to be laid out where most of the defects may be in one of the cores, they can disable that defective core and use it in devices that aren't meant for performance or use that core. I mean, I suspect that's already happening with M1 on iMac - 7 GPU cores on low end and 8 cores on high end. That helps boost the yield.

ArchStanton 200 comments · 3 Years

SGilbert said:

I do not think there is a lick of difference in the A chips from one product to another. As implied above, the cost savings would be tremendous using the same chip in all of the smaller units, just as the new M chips would be for the computer lines.

No difference in the A series? My iPad Mini 4 A8 says hello, so does my IPhone 11 A13 Bionic. However, if you mean in manufacturing the A series, that is likely wrong too. The greater the transistors, the greater the cost. And Apple has production numbers that make separate chip models economically viable.

While the unit cost difference may not be big, when you are talking builds of up to 100 million, the (we’ll say) couple of handful of dollars less cost for chips with fewer transistors is a big amount of money.

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