One of the more frustrating aspects of being an iPhone 6s user is that the device really does have middling battery life. This is why I’ve been rolling my eyes at rumors that Apple plans to make the iPhone 7 even thinner — I would much rather have an iPhone that’s slightly thicker and delivers significantly better battery life.
However, PhoneArena has flagged a new rumor from Korean news publication ETNews that claims Apple is going to use a new kind of chipset for the iPhone 7 that will allow it to have a thinner phone that’s also capable of holding a larger battery.
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According to ETNews, Apple is going to use a “fan-out” packaging method for the A10 chipset in the iPhone 7.
“Fan Out technology is a technology that increases number of I/O (Input/Output) terminals within a package by pulling out wiring of I/O terminals to outside from a semiconductor chip (Die), which is a previous step before packaging,” ETNews explains. “It is most cost effective from production cost perspective if [the] number of I/O terminals increases within a package while still decreasing size of a chip.”
What this means is that the iPhone 7 could have a more compact chipset that would shrink the area needed for the motherboard and antenna, and thus open up more space for the battery. Whether Apple actually goes through with this is all open to speculation, of course, but this rumor does suggest that there doesn’t necessarily need to be a major trade off between thinness and battery life.
