Boxes of iPhones purchased by customers are pictured next to an iPhone XS on display at the Apple Store in Singapore September 21, 2018. REUTERS/Edgar Su
September 21, 2018
(Reuters) – Apple Inc’s <AAPL.O> latest iPhones use components made by Micron Technology <MU.O> and Toshiba <6502.T> among others, according to a firm that cracked open iPhone XS and XS Max.
Among the first detailed teardowns of the phones since their launch on September, the study by repair firm iFixit did not list any parts from Samsung and, as expected, no chips from Qualcomm Inc <QCOM.O>.
Supplying parts for Apple’s iPhones is considered a coup for chipmakers and other manufacturers and Apple does not disclose which companies make the components while insisting its suppliers keep quiet.
That makes teardowns the only way of establishing the breakdown of parts in the phones, although analysts also recommend caution in drawing conclusions because Cupertino, California-based Apple sometimes uses more than one supplier for a part. What is found in one iPhone may not be found in others.
Qualcomm has been a supplier of components to Apple for years but the two have been locked in a wide-ranging legal dispute in which Apple has accused Qualcomm of unfair patent licensing practices..
U.S.-based Qualcomm, the world’s largest mobile phone chipmaker, has in turn accused Apple of patent infringement..
IFixit technicians also found components from companies including Skyworks Solutions <SWKS.O>, Broadcom <AVGO.O>, Murata <6981.T>, NXP Semiconductors <NXPI.O>, Cypress Semiconductor <CY.O>, Texas Instruments <TXN.O> and STMicroelectronics <STM.BN> among others.
It listed DRAM and NAND memory chips from Micron and Toshiba while not listing any parts produced by Intel <INTC.O>, whose modem and communications chips are seen as the natural replacements for Qualcomm hardware.
(Reporting by Arjun Panchadar, Sonam Rai and Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; editing by Patrick Graham)
