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The global chip shortage affects the iPhone less than the rest of the industry

Counterpoint Research has lowered its estimate for this year’s global smartphone shipments. Device shipments were originally projected at 1.45 billion units by 2021, an annual increase of 9 percent, but due to a chip shortage, Counterpoint has reduced its estimate for this year to 1.41 billion smartphones shipped, an increase of 6 percent year-over-year. Semiconductor shortages have been a problem since last quarter of last year, and have been going on ever since. Moreover, the situation was even worse in the now-completed third quarter, when some companies received only 70 percent of the parts ordered.

According to Counterpoint Research, 90 percent of the smartphone industry was affected by a chip shortage. The company claims that even though components such as the Display Driver IC (DDI), the main semiconductor used in smartphone displays, and power management integrated circuits (PMICs) were both in short supply, advanced design has helped the smartphone industry further growth. In addition, the accumulation of application processors (APs) and camera sensors has allowed smartphone manufacturers to continue to grow. called. An example of an AP used in the iPhone 13 series is the A15 Bionic. Counterpoint traces the shortage of AP chips back to the low rate of return represented by the new assembly lines that make the chips in the foundry-owned manufacturing plants. Qualcomm and Mediatek, the two leading AP suppliers in the smartphone industry, rely on Samsung and TSMC, respectively, to manufacture Application Processors for chips sold to phone manufacturers, and low yields further increase the chip shortage.

Tom Kang, director of research at Counterpoint Research, said “semiconductor shortages seem to affect all brands of ecosystems. Samsung, Oppo, Xiaomi are all affected, so we cut our forecasts. However, Apple seems to be the most resilient and least affected by AP in short supply “. Although Counterpoint did not explain why Apple was able to escape, the answer is fairly easy to infer.

As the largest customer of the world’s largest foundry, Apple certainly enjoys special treatment at TSMC. It’s not just about care. Starting in January, for example, TSMC will raise its prices by 20 percent, but Apple will only increase its price by 3 percent. Apple accounts for more than 20 percent of TSMC’s revenue and roughly one-fifth of its profits

would have been used to produce the A16 Bionic planned for next year, is too complicated, and is delayed until the A17 Bionic for the iPhone 15 series. This could mean billions fewer transistors getting inside the A16 Bionic, resulting in less improvement in the performance and energy efficiency of the iPhone 14.

The number of transistors in the A15 Bionic increased by 27 percent to 15 billion in the A14 Bionic 11.8 billion, compared to 8.5 billion transistors carried by the A13 Bionic. The transistor density of the A15 Bionic, which measures the number of transistors that fit within one square mm, was much more eloquent. This figure rose to 135.14 million from 134.09 million a year earlier.

Although the iPhone was avoided by a shortage of chips, Apple acknowledged that both the iPad and the Mac suffered from the company’s June shutdown. third financial quarter. Following the earnings report, Tim Cook told the media that “The deficit was primarily on the Mac and iPad. We projected the deficit at $ 3-4 billion. But we actually managed to reduce some of that and ended up at the lower end of that range.”

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