Bloomberg reports that the main iPhone assembler, Foxconn, has acquired a stake in China’s largest chipmaker Tsinghjau Unigroup amid Apple’s push to expand its roster of chip suppliers to avoid supply chain disruptions.
Foxconn Industrial Internet Co. acquired a minority stake in Tsinghjau Unigroup for $788 million.
Bloomberg notes that the Taiwanese company’s investment in the Chinese chip maker is surprising as tensions mount between Beijing and Taipei over issues such as technology and supply chain security. The deal requires approval from Taiwan’s investment commission, which oversees such a delicate investment, but Foxconn has not filed any paperwork with the agency.
Bloomberg previously reported that Apple is considering buying flash memory chips from a Chinese chip maker, including subsidiary Tsinghua Unigroup, for the first time. The company is now buying a significant portion of the iPhone’s storage chips from two Japanese companies: Western Digital and Kioxia. At the beginning of the year, both companies lost at least 6.5 exabytes (6.5 billion GB) of flash memory due to contamination problems in NAND manufacturing chemicals. This has led to a partial shortage of SSD drives worldwide, and their production has been significantly reduced.
The incident highlighted Apple’s reliance on partnerships with Western Digital and Kioxia and likely prompted the company to explore options for diversifying its suppliers.
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