“SK Hynix and Toshiba have both experienced lower-than-expected yield rates for their 3D NAND technologies resulting in fewer supplies for Apple’s 2017 series of iPhones, according to industry sources,” Josephine Lien and Jessie Shen report for DigiTimes. “The overall supply of NAND flash chips for the upcoming iPhones has fallen short of demand for the devices by as much as 30%.”
“Apple has turned to Samsung for more NAND chip supplies for its upcoming phones,” Lien and Shen report. “As many of the major NAND flash suppliers are still seeing disappointing yield rates for their 3D NAND technologies, the global supply of NAND flash chips is set to remain tight through the end of 2017, the sources said.”
“Samsung, Toshiba and Micron Technology are transitioning to 64-layer 3D NAND flash products,”Lien and Shen report,” while SK Hynix plans to jump straight to supplying 72-layer 3D chips.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Al Pacino as Apple CEO Tim Cook:
Doesn’t matter how many if they’re “Korean dish washer makers”. The fact that apple STILL has to turn to them for this type of thing will keep these guys in business for years upon years to come
Couldn’t Apple get them from a different company? I’d like to see them help out companies in the USA instead of foreign companies. I’m sure there are American companies that would love to work with Apple. Seeing more “Made in USA” product stickers would be really nice.
You should start up a company that manufactures cutting edge memory technologies then.. I am sure you can do it in no time at all..
Exporting jobs also exports pollution.
The more suppliers you have the more stable your chain. However it also means that you can’t easily get high volume pricing as Apple is used to doing.
Apple just can’t seem to pull themselves away from Samsung.
Considering how recent Apple product supplies at launch are limited, having that quantity reduced a further (up to 30%) is going to be painful for them.
Clearly, this one division of Samsung is doing something right. We hear over and over about other wafer fab companies with yield problems, while Samsung remains the supplier that can deliver. We don’t have to like them. But I’d be curious as to what makes them tick and how they’re able to do what they do.
Apple fanboys should realize that Apple itself – the actual corporation with the executives, engineers, managers etc. – doesn’t hate Samsung nearly as much as the fanboys do. In fact they pretty much don’t hate them at all. Apple filed the obligatory lawsuit against Samsung many years ago to appease Steve Jobs’ “nuclear war” mindset – which their lawyers knew in advance that they were going to lose – but since then there hasn’t been a peep. Apple has continued to use Samsung as a component manufacturer, just as they have continued to use tech and ideas from Samsung’s Galaxy S and Note devices into iPhone, which they had been covertly doing since the iPhone 4 and blatantly since the iPhone 6.
Apple and Samsung are very successful companies who make great products that aren’t going anywhere. Also iOS and Android are successful platforms that aren’t going anywhere. Past time for the fanboys to get over it and move on.