Apple isn’t able to meet iPhone X demand, as the phone remains sold out around the world, but there’s already talk about next year’s iPhones.
Apple will ready three iPhones for September 2018, reports say, and all of them are supposed to have the same basic design as the iPhone X, Face ID camera notch included. A new report also reveals what may seem like a tiny detail about the near future of the smartphone business, but it’s a crucial one for the iPhone vs. Android competition.
Qualcomm and MediaTek are yet to advance to 7nm nodes for mobile processors Dititimes says, which isn’t a detail most smartphone buyers will care about.
The report says that only two companies in the world can really afford to move to 7nm chips as soon as next year, and that’s Apple and Samsung. That means future flagships, including 2018 iPhone X and Galaxy models may sport 7nm chips inside. These processors will be even more efficient than the 10nm chips that power this year’s hottest mobile phones. When it comes to performance, the report notes that there’s little difference between 7nm and 10nm, which is why some smartphone makers won’t be ready to make the jump to 7nm chips yet.
However, we’ll point out the fact that Samsung’s first flagship of the year, the Galaxy S9, is likely to use a beefed up 10nm chip. Samsung is making Exynos 9810 and Snapdragon 845 on the improved 10nm node, even though it announced a few weeks ago that it’s also ready to mass-produce 8nm chips.
Apple, meanwhile, is working with TSMC, on 7nm chips that may be found inside all 2018 iPhones and iPads.
The report notes that a smartphone chip maker needs to ship 120 to 150 million 7nm chips a year to turn a profit. That’s the kind of volume that can only be achieved by a few companies out there, including Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, and MediaTek.
From the looks of it, only Apple may move to 7nm chips next year, which may turn out to be a major advantage over almost every Android flagship launched by competitors.
