As new iPhones go on sale, studies reveal chips from Intel and Toshiba

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc. (AAPL.OThe latest iPhones are sold worldwide on Friday, with components manufactured by Intel Corp.INTC.O) and Toshiba (6502.T) among others, according to two companies that have opened the models of iPhone Xs and Xs Max.

The studies conducted by the iFixit repair firm www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+XS++andXS+Max+Teardown/113021 and the TechInsights chip analysis company, released this week, are among the first detailed dismantling of phones. Suggested comments were a subtle update of the tenth anniversary iPhone X.

The supply of spare parts for Apple's iPhones is considered a blow for chip makers and other manufacturers. Apple publishes a large list of suppliers every year, but does not reveal which companies manufacture which components and insists that its suppliers remain silent.

This makes disassembling the only way to determine the distribution of parts in phones, although analysts also recommend caution in the conclusions because Apple sometimes uses multiple vendors for a part. What is in one iPhone may not be found in others.

Apple could not be contacted immediately for comment.

The breakdowns did not include any Samsung parts (005930.KS) and no chips from Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O).

Samsung, in the past, has provided memory chips for Apple iPhones and analysts thought it was the only provider of expensive iPhone X screens from last year.

Qualcomm has been a component supplier for Apple for years, but both have been locked into a large-scale legal dispute in which Apple has accused Qualcomm of unfair patent licensing practices.

Qualcomm, the world's largest maker of mobile phone chips, has accused Apple of patent infringement.

Qualcomm said in July that Apple intended to use only "competing modems" in its next version for iPhone.

Disassembly of iFixit showed the iPhone Xs and Xs Max used the modem and Intel communication chips instead of Qualcomm hardware.

The latest iPhones also had Micron Technology's DRAM and NAND memory chips (MU.O) and Toshiba, according to the iFixit study. Previous versions of the iPhone 7 had shown DRAM chips manufactured by Samsung on some models.

The TechInsights dissection of a 256-GB storage capacity of the iPhone Xs Max, on the other hand, revealed the presence of Micron's DRAM, but SanDisk's NAND memory, which belongs to Western Digital Corp.WDC.O) and collaborates with Toshiba for the supply of NAND chips.

Toshiba Memory, Toshiba's production unit, was purchased by a consortium led by private investors earlier this year.

In the past, TechInsights discovered that Apple used different DRAM and NAND providers in the same generation of phones.

"For the memory, Apple is obviously competing with Samsung and wants to reduce their dependence as much as possible, so we see Toshiba for NAND flash storage and Micron for DRAM," said Abhinav Davuluri, a Morningstar analyst.

Jim Morrison, vice president of TechInsights, said in an interview that it seemed like one of Dialog Semiconductor (DLGS.DE) the chips had been replaced in the iPhone Xs Max by one of Apple's chips, but it was not known yet whether this also applied to the iPhone Xs.

Dialog refused to comment. In May, the company announced that Apple had reduced its orders for chips.

IFixit and TechInsights technicians also found components from companies such as Skyworks Solutions (SWKS.O), Broadcom (AVGO.O), Murata (6981.T), NXP Semiconductors (NXPI.O), Cypress Semiconductor (CY.O), Texas Instruments (TXN.O) and STMicroelectronics (STM.BN).