Apple is reportedly looking into designing its own power management chips (AAPL)

pulse

December 1, 2017 11:26 AM

Nikkei Asian Review reports that the Cupertino giant could start making self-designed chips as soon as next year.

A new report from Nikkei Asian Review says that Apple is planning to move design of power management chips — the ones responsible for battery life management and energy consumption — in-house.

The company is apparently on track to start operations as early as next year, ditching its partner Dialog Semiconductor, whose shares were down 17% after the news broke.

"Based on Apple's current plan, they are set to replace around half of its power management chips to go into iPhones by itself, starting next year," an anonymous source told The Verge, while another one said chips might not be ready until 2019.

This wouldn't be the first time that Apple — a company famous for the vertical, end-to-end integration of its products — ditches third-party suppliers to design components by itself.

Earlier this year, the Cupertino giant announced plans to stop relying on British firm Imagination Technologies for the graphics processing units (GPUs) of its devices, which resulted in the first-ever Apple-designed GPUs in this year's iPhone trifecta.

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