The upcoming iPhone 5 is rumored to be among the new iOS devices to feature a next-generation PowerVR GPU. Recent shipping numbers revealed that Apple shipped almost 50 million iPhone 4 units in 2010. Soon, the Verizon iPhone will further increase the demand for Apple chips.
Interestingly, AppleInsider cites The Korea Times on a new challenge for Apple's supply chain: How to deliver enough Apple chips in 2011 if sales growth continues into the sky? According to the Korean newspaper, Apple is overbidding competitors to secure a larger portion of Samsung Semiconductor's production capacity.
"Samsung Semiconductor has agreed with Apple to quadruple monthly shipments of its mobile application processor chips to 20,000 sheets throughout this year from 5,000 last year," an industry source, citing Samsung's suppliers as the source, told The Korea Times.
Samsung is reportedly building a $3.6 billion chip plant mainly to produce non-memory chips in Austin, Texas. The leak is said to stem from Samsung officials, but Samsung spokesman Kim Se-hun declined to comment.
The Korean newspaper says that Samsung Semiconductor will offer 50% of its application processor production capacity to Apple for 2011, which would be more than the Galaxy S supply for Samsung Mobile products.
Rumors have recently suggested that Samsung Mobile has teamed up with NVIDIA to deliver dual-core smartphones later this year. NVIDIA is currently on a path that suggests Samsung Mobile would get quite an interesting selection of Android products if the rumors are true.
Samsung's Windows Phone 7 effort is based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor, so it would only make sense for Samsung Mobile to team up with NVIDIA for select Android products too, given NVIDIA's interesting and rapid development path. NVIDIA technology coupled with Samsung's Super AMOLED Plus technology may be exactly what Samsung Mobile needs to challenge the iPhone 5.
Android and Me recently reported that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S2 and Galaxy Tab 2 will indeed be powered by NVIDIA Tegra 2 chipsets. The Galaxy Tab 2 may also be a 10-incher, meaning that Samsung possibly plans to target both the iPhone 5 and iPad 2 directly this year. Samsung will make official announcements for these products on February 13th and 14th.
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