Apple Continues to Use LPDDR4X RAM for iPhone 13, While Competitors Have Been Using LPDDR5 for Some Time

In many instances, Apple is usually late to adopt the latest standards, which happens for many reasons. The company waits for the engineering science to mature, allowing it to secure shipments from suppliers at a lower toll, which in turn allows it to accomplish higher margins for its products. 1 example was when Apple'southward competitors launched 5G-set up handsets, while the company took a whole yr. Some other instance is the RAM type, and where Android smartphone makers are releasing devices with LPDDR5 RAM, the iPhone 13 sticks with the older LPDDR4X standard.

Apple Likely Stuck With LPDDR4X RAM to Save Component Costs every bit LPDDR5 Is Costly to Procure

During an all-encompassing teardown of the iPhone 13 Pro, iFixit took apart the logic board and found out that this model uses 6GB RAM of LPDRR4X procured from SK Hynix. Deport in heed that the memory manufacturer earlier announced 18GB LPDDR5 retentivity chips for smartphones, which is constitute in the top-tier version of the ASUS ROG Phone 5 and others. While nosotros are scratching our heads every bit to why Apple tree stuck with a previous-generation standard, it is obvious why the company chose this road; cost-saving.

Though LPDDR5 RAM is faster and more than energy-efficient than LPDDR4X, it is more than expensive to incorporate in smartphones. Another affair to note is that the 128GB of NAND storage in the iPhone 13 Pro belongs to Kioxia. If you lot have been following the industry leaderboards for a while, yous will know that Samsung is the biggest manufacturer of memory and storage chips, then Apple not choosing Samsung for these components can only mean it chose other suppliers to salvage on production costs.

It is besides possible that some iPhone thirteen shipments feature Samsung-fabricated parts since the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max displays are provided by the South Korean tech behemoth, but we tin can only provide information based on the latest teardown. As well, with the ongoing flake shortage, Apple tree was probably forced to make some toll-saving decisions, otherwise, information technology might not have been able to sell the iPhone xiii series at the same price every bit last year'southward iPhone 12.

This chip shortage is likely a contributing factor as to why the iPhone thirteen and iPhone 13 mini feature a four-cadre GPU in the A15 Bionic, while the more premium models are treated to a 5-core GPU. What do you think is Apple's reasoning for sticking with slower RAM chips? Share your thoughts beneath.

News Source: iFixit