Feed: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Feed Link: https://www.engadget.com/
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Title: Apple is reportedly working with Samsung to build iPhone image sensors
in Texas

Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:00:21 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/a...

Apple has announced that it's working with Samsung at its Texas plant to
"launch an innovative new technology for making chips." Those chips are
reportedly cutting-edge image sensors for iPhones, according to The Financial
Times. That in turn means that Sony may no longer be Apple's only supplier of
smartphone camera sensors for its upcoming phones.

The chips in question are reportedly three-layer stacked image sensors that
will allow for fast smartphone camera shooting speeds and high-frame-rate 8K
video, along with reduced rolling shutter "jello" distortion. Both Samsung
and Sony (along with Canon) have recently said that they're working on such
chips.

The news marks a reconciliation of sorts between Apple and its frenemy
Samsung. Apple stopped using Samsung in favor of TSMC as its primary contract
manufacturer back in 2011, kicking off a decline in Samsung's chip business.
Now, Samsung has scored back-to-back foundry wins with Apple and its recent
$16.5 billion deal to build chips for Tesla.

Samsung may have won the business due to its likely exemption from upcoming
tariffs on foreign chips announced yesterday by Trump that could be as high
as 100 percent. It looks like companies with manufacturing in the US like
Samsung, TSMC and SK Hynix will dodge those import taxes. However, Sony's
image sensors are built under contract by TSMC in Taiwan, and Sony itself
doesn't have any such chip plants in the US.

Sony has about a 45 percent share of the $21.8 billion image sensor market,
compare to about 19 percent for Samsung. One big reason for Sony's domination
is its cutting edge technology, having been first to market in nearly every
major advance, including backside illumination, two-layer stacked sensors and
global shutters on mirrorless cameras. According to a recent rumor, Sony was
contemplating a spin-off its sensor division but held back due to Trump's
tariffs.

"We remain confident that we are advanced in providing sensor technology to
our customers, and we will focus on continuing further technological
advancement through larger sensor size and density," Sony said in a statement
in response to the news from Apple.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/a...
samsung-to-build-iphone-image-sensors-in-texas-120021281.html?src=rss

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