Samsung Becomes Main LPDDR5X DRAM Supplier for Apple's iPhone 17
Samsung Electronics is all set to be the largest vendor of low-power LPDDR5X DRAM for the upcoming iPhone 17 from Apple. According to industry sources, it is expected that Samsung's supply will account for around 60-70% of the total volumes, a considerable increase compared with earlier iPhone models where supplies tended to be more evenly spread with competitor SK Hynix.
Reason behind Increased Reliance on Samsung
Apple's decision to increase orders with Samsung is one of the structural market and production factors affecting the state of the two competitors for customers. The fact that integrated circuit makers SK Hynix and Micron have focused more of their production capacity on high bandwidth memory (HBM) has caused a supply gap in the general-purpose LPDDR for the nearly 230 million capacity for iPhones produced each year. Samsung, by virtue of its size in production, is the only company that can fill this gap.
This trend is also expected to be prolonged since the Apple reports also indicate that it had ordered quite a huge supply from Samsung for the iPhone model scheduled for release next year.
Meeting Apple's Stringent Technical Requirements
One of the significant points in favor of Samsung would be its compliance with Apple's palate of notoriously difficult "Apple specifications," above and beyond JEDEC standards industry-wide. The nature of Apple's demands includes a very high degree of consistency in product units numbers in millions so that every component performs exactly the same. That further includes operational stability in the long term, related to the "A" series application processors, where a tolerance of nothing is given to momentary voltage spikes.
Samsung's LPDDR5X 12GB product meets these needs with some specific technical privileges:
- Compression: At 0.65mm thick, it is the thinnest LPDDR5 available.
- Efficiency: Compared to the previous generation, it has 21.2% improved thermal resistance and consume 25% less power.
In addition, an industry insider noted Samsung's "overwhelming production capacity," stating that it is the only company that can meet the required volumes by Apple, especially as competing companies pivot to HBM.
AI in Memory and Future Requirements
Artificial intelligence on devices is dictating the move for bigger memory sizes in smartphones. The iPhone 17 Air, Pro, and Pro Max will have LPDDR5X memory at 12GB-the highest ever recorded in an iPhone, up from 8GB in previous models. This advancement is justifiable by generative AI feature support.
As memory becomes more critical for AI, so does Apple prefer leaning on capable suppliers like Samsung. The trend is affecting memory pricing since the price of a 12GB LPDDR5X module rose from about $30 to $70 this year.
Samsung's leadership in LPDDR sells even in AI hardware. Reportedly, the company secured around half the volume for SOCAMM2, NVIDIA's new memory module that stacks LPDDR5X chips.
