APPLE'S A5 CHIP BEING MADE IN TEXAS BY SAMSUNG

Apple and other consumer electronics companies typically look to the Far East for components, but a new report suggests that the production of Apple’s current mobile processors has now moved to the United States. Reuters on Friday reported that the chip powering Apple’s current iPhone, iPad and iPod touch models is now manufactured in a new 1.6 million square foot Samsung factory located in Austin, Texas. The report cites unnamed people familiar with Samsung’s operations. Samsung’s new Austin facility — which is the size of nine football fields — reportedly reached full production earlier this month, and it was built to manufacture non-memory chips. The South Korea-based company confirmed that its Texas plant was recently expanded to manufacture logic chips, though it would not comment specifically on Apple or its A5 processor. Reuters reported earlier this year that Samsung lost the contract to build Apple’s next-generation A6 processor, which will instead be manufactured by Taiwan-based chip maker TSMC.

RUMOR: APPLE iPHONE 5 TO USE DUAL-CORE A5 CHIP

Users and developers alike have been combing through iOS 4.3 since it’s release yesterday, and their efforts have produced a few interesting tidbits of information. After dismantling both software packages, tinkerers have discovered Apple’s naming convention for the iPad 2 — iPad 2,1 (K93AP) is the Wi-Fi model, iPad 2,2 (K94AP) is the GSM model, and iPad 2,3 (K95AP) is the CDMA model. All models are listed as having the S5L8940 processor, more commonly known as the A5.

Here is the interesting bit: additional text snippets found in the iOS 4.3 and Xcode 4 bundles reference the next iPhone by its codename, N94AP. They also list it as having the same S5L8940, dual-core, A5 processor as the iPad 2. It isn’t really a surprise that Apple would use the A5 in both the iPad 2 and iPhone 5 — since it uses the A4 in the iPad and iPhone 4.