The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus have barely been out for a month, but Apple engineers are hard at work finishing the iPhone 7, and they’re already placing orders for new chips.
Apple has placed LCD driver orders with Synaptics for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, indicating that the touch and display driver (TDDI) single-chip solutions its been developing in-house aren’t quite ready for prime time.
The development of Apple’s in-house TDDI chips is behind schedule, according to sources that spoke to DigiTimes. The new TDDI chips could allow Apple to remove the home button from iOS devices and place Touch ID behind the display instead.
Even though Apple has filed numerous patents for Touch ID-embedded displays, it’s still unclear whether the big design change will be ready in time for the iPhone 7.
Synaptics revved up its capabilities by acquiring Renesas SP Drivers in 2014, which has been the sole supplier of LCD driver ICs for the iPhone. The acquisition should help Synaptics maintain orders from Apple until the iPhone-maker’s own chips are ready
Apple has tried to speed up the development of its TDDI chips by hiring senior engineers from Renesas. By creating its own TDDI solution that company would be able to reduce its reliance on third-party suppliers.
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Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
One response to “Apple is already ordering chips for iPhone 7”
“Apple is already ordering chips for iPhone 7”
Apple is •always• ordering chips for one device or another. The key line here is, “The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus have barely been out for a month…” In fact, the 6s iPhones have barely been out for a month, and Cult is already writing articles about the next, unnamed, unannounced model. Really? Only one month since the new phone and there’s nothing better to write about?