Apple has reportedly increased its order of next-generation A18 chips from TSMC to between 90 million and 100 million units, due to expected high demand for its upcoming iPhone 16 lineup.
Analysts believe Apple initially ordered a chip run of 80 million to 90 million for last year’s iPhone 15 model line.
The introduction of Apple Intelligence, Apple’s Artificial Intelligence, in iOS 18 is expected to boost initial sales of the iPhone 16 lineup. Apple Intelligence requires at least an iPhone 15 Pro to run, which means owners of older iPhones will miss out on Apple’s new AI features unless they upgrade to an iPhone 15 Pro or one of the iPhone 16 models.
The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max were powered by an A17 Pro chip manufactured using TSMC’s second-generation 3nm process.
This year, all four models in the iPhone 16 lineup are expected to use A18-branded chips manufactured using the N3E process. That said, the A18 chip in the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus is likely to use the same A17 Pro design that was used in the iPhone 15 Pro models. The top-of-the-line iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max handsets will likely use an “A18 Pro” chip which could feature an upgraded Neural Engine with more cores enabling improved AI/machine learning performance.
The standard iPhone 16 models could also receive a RAM upgrade to 8GB of RAM, up from 6GB in the iPhone 15 models.
Apple is expected to release the iPhone 16 series and the iOS 18 operating system in the fall, sometime in September.