Apple Reportedly Orders 100 Million A15 Chips for Upcoming iPhone 13

Apple has ordered more than 100 million of its "A15" chips to be produced by supplier TSMC, as it prepares to launch its upcoming iPhone 13 lineup, according to supply chain sources cited by CNBeta.

Apple is expecting the upcoming line-up to be high in demand and has reportedly asked its suppliers to boost production by more than 25% for this year's new iPhone. With the boost, the company's suppliers are expected to produce 100 million handsets, compared to the 75 million it initially produced for the 2020 iPhones. According to today's report, Apple has ordered 100 million A15 chips to be produced using TSMC's enhanced 5nm process.

The A14 chip powering the latest iPad Air and iPhone 12 are the first Apple-designed chips to be built using the 5nm process. The upcoming chips will continue to be based on the same technology and an enhanced version that will offer improved performance and power efficiency.

Today's report also claims that the upcoming chip will feature a six-core CPU with four high-efficiency cores and two high-performance cores. If true, the upcoming chip will feature the same CPU count as the existing A14 but will still provide performance and battery life improvements.

The power efficiency of the upcoming A15 chip will be critical on the higher-end models of the upcoming iPhone due to the rumored inclusion of a ProMotion display. Apple's ProMotion technology allows displays to refresh at a higher 120Hz refresh rate, which can be significantly power hungry. The high-end iPhone models may also feature always-on display capabilities.

A DigiTimes report earlier this year said that even with the addition of a ProMotion display, the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max will be 15-20% more power-efficient thanks to the A15 chip. On top of the improved chip efficiency, the upcoming iPhone is expected to feature larger batteries.