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Highlights of the day: Apple gearing up

Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES, Taipei 0

Apple is said to be looking to boost its in-house IC design capability in a bid to stay competitive and its moves are expected to benefit TSMC. At the same time, the company is also set to release a new 16-inch MacBook Pro with an ultra-thin bezel design. Meanwhile, despite being banned by the US government, Huawei remains aggressive in development of 5G applications.

Apple revving up in-house IC design capability; TSMC to benefit most: Apple has clinched a deal to acquire Intel's smartphone baseband (modem) chip business unit, and the US vendor is also expected to roll out MacBook models featuring its own ARM-based processors in the near future. And TSMC is expected to benefit the most, among Apple's supply chain partners, from the tech giant's efforts in strengthening its in-house chip design capability, according to industry sources.

Apple set to release new MacBook Pro with narrow bezel in September: Apple is set to release in September 2019 new MacBook Pro featuring ultra-narrow bezel to accommodate a 16-inch screen, expanded from the original 15-inch one. And Taiwan's ODM Quanta Computer is expected to be the sole contract producer for the new model, according to supply chain sources.

Huawei gearing up 5G deployments via 3-pronged approach: Despite suffering hiccups in obtaining advanced 5G base stations chips from US suppliers, Huawei is still aggressively taking a three-pronged approach in carrying out its 5G deployments, namely 5G base stations, 5G smartphones and 5G CPE (customer premise equipment) series devices, according to industry sources.