When Apple unveiled the MacBook Neo, the company’s most affordable laptop ever, the most obvious question was: How did Apple manufacture a sub-$600 with solid specs and a premium build?
The answer lies in how Apple turned defective iPhone and Mac chips into a business. Surprisingly, these faulty chips have powered some of the best Apple products over the years. The technology that enables this manufacturing miracle is called chip binning, and it allows Apple to turn defective processors into a virtual goldmine.
Chip binning makes imperfect chips perfectly usable
Chipmaking is a complex process, and some chips inevitably come out less than imperfect. A single silicon wafer might contain hundreds of the A18 chips that power the iPhone 17, but not all of them are created equal.
Some may emerge with a defective GPU core. This is where chip binning comes into play. Instead of throwing away these defective chips, Apple just electronically disables the nonfunctional core.
It then tests the rest of the chip and, assuming all goes well, uses it as a lower-tier processor. Doing so allows Apple to use the less-capable chip in a product that doesn’t require all the cores of the perfect processor. And this, in turn, allows Apple to puts its “faulty” silicon into perfectly usable products.
Apple doesn’t limit chip binning to defective chips, either. Sometimes, the company disables perfectly working cores to distinguish product tiers.
For example, the A18 chip in the MacBook Neo packs one fewer active GPU core than the one in the iPhone 17 Pro. Even though they belong to the same silicon family, their prices differ.
Apple has been doing it for over a decade
Apple has been using chip binning for more than a decade. A detailed report by The Wall Street Journal says Apple’s use of binned chips “dates back to the first chip Apple designed, the A4, which powered the first iPad, then months later the iPhone 4, and after that the second-generation Apple TV box.”
The epic scale of Apple’s supply chain leaves the company with plenty of less-than-perfect spares it can repurpose in smart ways. For example, a problem with some A4 chips made them too power-hungry for smartphones, so Apple used in the original Apple TV set-top box. Since that device plugged into a power outlet, the chip worked without any problems.
Apple did the same with the M1 MacBook Air and the 2018 iPad Pro. The WSJ report also highlights that the A15 Bionic in the iPhone SE, A17 Pro in the iPad mini, A18 and A19 in the iPhone 16e and the iPhone 17e, and the A19 Pro-powered iPhone Air all feature binned chips.
But these are not the only products Apple used binned chips in.
Chip binning has defined Apple’s modern lineup
Apple’s strategy has scaled to a point where it now structures the company’s entire product line, and the MacBook Neo is just the latest example.
“What began as a salvage operation for mobile silicon has evolved into a cornerstone of Apple’s design strategy, allowing it to segment its lineup with surgical precision, achieving efficiencies that smaller rivals struggle to match,” the WSJ reported.
Here’s a list of the latest Apple products with binned chips, as reported by the WSJ:
- MacBook Neo: A18 Pro with one of the six GPU cores disabled.
- iPhone 17e:- A19 with four GPU cores disabled
- iPhone Air: A19 Pro with one of the six GPU cores disabled
- iPad mini 7: A17 Pro with one less GPU core than the standard chip
- Base 13–inch MacBook Air 2026: M5 chip with eight GPU cores instead of 10
How does chip binning affect a chip’s performance?
Removing a GPU core reduces the processor’s performance, but the impact isn’t drastic. If you lose one of the five GPU cores, it translates to a 20% performance drop.
But that 20% headroom is only used when you push your iPhone or MacBook to its limits. In graphics-heavy tasks like video games and editing, you might notice the reduced performance. But web browsing, messaging, photography and using many other apps remain mostly unaffected. (If your work involves GPU-intensive tasks, make sure to check if there’s any difference between the base model and other variants before buying a new Apple device.)
Why does Apple use chip binning?
Apple has been one of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s biggest customers for years. Cupertino secures deals to manufacture chips on a large share of TSMC’s latest chip nodes, which use the most complex processes.
Since new nodes produce higher defect rates, chip binning helps turn these early imperfect chips into usable products. Apple basically tries to recover the cost of imperfect silicon by salvaging it.
The MacBook Neo is the perfect example of this. The demand for Apple’s new laptop was so high that the company reportedly ran out of binned A18 Pro chips and needed to fire up the line again.
Over the years, chip binning has potentially helped Apple save millions of dollars. It also helped the company expand its product lineup and give customers access to more affordable devices.
The next time Apple launches a new product powered by a chip with one fewer GPU core than other processors in the line, it isn’t just a spec downgrade. That’s Apple turning a manufacturing defect into a brilliant product strategy.
Anurag Chawake is a tech-focused writer specializing in smartphones, apps and consumer technology. His interest in computers began during the Windows 98 era, eventually leading him to explore everything from operating systems to mobile devices and PC hardware. Anurag previously contributed to The Indian Express, covering Apple, Android, gaming and the broader technology landscape.
