Although range-topping Apple processors are produced by TSMC in Taiwan, a lot of the chips that it uses inside its devices are made in the U.S. This year alone, Apple says it intends to source as many as 19 billion chips made in America — and tens of millions of them will be fabbed by TSMC in Arizona.
"During calendar year 2025, we expect to source more than 19 billion chips from a dozen states, including tens of millions of advanced chips being made in Arizona this year," said Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, during this week's earnings call with analysts and investors while describing Apple's manufacturing activities in America.
"We also source glass used in iPhone from an American company. All told, we have more than 9,000 suppliers in the U.S. across all 50 states."
For now, TSMC's Fab 21 in Arizona will produce a fraction of the chips Apple uses in its products — tens of millions out of the 19 billion chips made in the U.S. But even tens of millions seems like a lot, considering Apple's latest devices use chips fabbed with 3nm-class process technologies, whereas Fab 21 produces chips on TSMC's 4nm and 5nm-class production nodes.
Apparently, Apple still has plenty of products that sell in the tens of millions that rely on 4nm and 5nm-class chips. Nonetheless, it should be pointed out that most of Apple's in-house designed processors will be made in Taiwan.
The key chips used by Apple inside its devices — such as system-on-chip (SoC) processors, memory, modems, and camera sensors — are produced by companies like TSMC, Micron, Samsung, SK hynix, and Sony in various Asian countries, including Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan.
Each of Apple's devices contains dozens of humble ICs, however — amplifiers, power management ICs (PMICs), display drivers, radio front-end modules (FEMs), microcontrollers, retimers, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth modules, Ethernet controllers, and tens of others — that do not need the most advanced fabrication technologies, and which are made in the U.S. To that end, it is not surprising that Apple may be sourcing billions of chips made in the U.S. already.
In addition to sourcing chips from U.S. developers and manufacturers, Apple recently announced a commitment to invest $500 billion over the coming four years in its own facilities in America. This effort will involve scaling up operations and adding staff across multiple locations, such as Michigan, Texas, California, Arizona, Nevada, Iowa, Oregon, North Carolina, and Washington. As part of this expansion, it will also be setting up a new facility in Texas that will produce its AI servers.
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