Comment by btbuilder
Comment by btbuilder 2 days ago
Do the chips get shipped to China for assembly?
Comment by btbuilder 2 days ago
Do the chips get shipped to China for assembly?
Most likely frequent boating miles given their push to use water transport over air when possible for the environmental benefits.
I think "for assembly" here means iPhone assembly, ie. the final SoC will be sent to China to assemble the iPhone. I don't think GP is referring to packaging.
Please follow the site guidelines when commenting here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
We've had to ask you this before (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35998957), so if you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Two points to counter the snark:
1. The output of a "chip manufacturing" process is a wafer. There is absolutely further assembly (bonding, packaging) done on this output.
2. The chips themselves are not for the end user's consumption. They are assembled into a product, a "consumer electronic".
The dies themselves are "assembled" - cut from the wafer, bonded to the wires (or solder bumps) that carry signals to the rest of the system, and packaged for physical protection and thermal management.
In recent times, multi-chiplet architecture has added its own layer of complexity to that process.
See also: OSAT.
There's a lot of chip packaging in Taiwan, Malaysia, and maybe Singapore so these A16s are probably racking up frequent flier miles. Probably not China though.
In the future they will probably be packaged in the US: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/11/apple-announces-expan...