At least some of the camera sensors for the iPhone 18 Pro look set to be made in the USA, at a Samsung plant in Austin, Texas.
Production of advanced image sensors for Apple is expected to begin sometime around March, suggesting that they will be destined for the iPhone 18 Pro …
The Samsung plant in Austin is not new, but it has not previously made camera sensors. A new report in The Elec says that the company is preparing to install production equipment for iPhone image sensors.
Samsung is expected to install production equipment at its fab in Austin, Texas for the production of CMOS image sensors (CIS) that will be supplied to Apple for iPhones. Last week, the South Korean tech giant has place job postings for mechanical and electrical project managers to work on hookup at the fab.
The report references “wafer-to-wafer hybrid bonding where three wafers are stacked,” which is consistent with earlier reports on a three-layer stacked camera sensor. This is said to be the advanced technology Samsung used to win at least some of Apple’s camera sensor business. Apple has long bought these exclusively from Sony.
A stacked sensor is where the processing electronics are mounted directly to the back of the sensor, and a three-layer version would have more of the circuitry attached to the sensor, which should result in increased signal processing speeds. This would improve the responsiveness of the camera. Stacked sensors also have the potential to eliminate some sources of noise, boosting image quality.
Given the advanced nature of the sensor and the reported timings, this would suggest that it will first appear in the two iPhone 18 Pro models. The base model iPhone 18 is expected to launch in the spring, so production of this sensor would be too late for that. It’s likely that Apple would in any case want to launch the most sophisticated sensor in the Pro models first.
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