“Don’t get too excited about an intriguing story from the Albany Times Union saying that chip-manufacturing company GlobalFoundries may soon start turning out chips for Apple’s iPhones and iPads at a factory in upstate New York,” Arik Hesseldahl reports for AllThingsD.
“I’ve been checking with industry sources who have a pretty clear picture about what may be going on. And it’s probably not all that it’s initially cracked up to be,” Hesseldahl reports. “In the most likely scenario, Samsung will still be the primary manufacturer of Apple’s chips for the iPhone and iPad, they said, continuing the role it has played since the earliest days of the iPhone: Building the chips that Apple designs under contract.”
“Sources close to the situation said the deal that appears to be taking shape looks more like this: Samsung will use GlobalFoundries for what is known as ‘flex capacity,'” Hesseldahl reports. “This is a long-standing industry practice under which a chip manufacturer pays to occasionally use another company’s factories when demand on their own factory is running higher than they would like, and they need a little help.”
Read more in the full article here.
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