Apple has increased its order of A15 chips for the forthcoming iPhone 13 to over 100 million, according to supply chain sources cited by CNBeta.
If true, this is a huge lift in numbers compared to last autumn’s release of the iPhone 12, which reportedly had a prelaunch order of 75 million chips.
Amassing so much stock could be a means to avoid the production delays that affected the iPhone 12 launch and indicate Apple’s high expectations for its new iPhone.
This confidence appears pretty well justified as earlier this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced record-breaking revenues of $65.6 billion in the first fiscal quarter of 2021 – around $5 billion more than analysts had predicted - despite the manufacturing shortages caused by the ongoing pandemic. The bump in sales was driven by a record number of people upgrading their iPhones in the last quarter of 2020 (iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max sold best during that period).
After ending its 15-year partnership with chipmaker Intel last summer, Apple agreed to terms with semiconductor giant TSMC to manufacture the A14 processor found in the iPhone 12 and the A15, the first of a new generation of System-on-Chip processors designed to boost the performance of Apple's upcoming MacBooks and iPhones.
The report from CNBeta claims that the new chip will feature a six-core CPU with four high-efficiency cores and two high-performance cores. While that’s the same CPU power as the existing A14, it should still improve performance and battery life.
The iPhone 13 is hotly tipped to arrive in September 2021, with some analysts recently predicting a 14th September launch date.
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