No one know the outside world, whether Apple (Apple) to bought it from a Maxim 7 square feet fabs analogy used to do... And has always been good at make semiconductor suppliers for the company to develop new element ─ ─ in fact and ability to put those semiconductor manufacturers swallow whole ─ ─ ─ the apple, likely in the coming years bring far-reaching influence for analog IC market; So is well worth to think apple is what he did in the field of analogy, the progress may be helpful to the company, as well as the progress of how many associated with manufacturing.

We know that in the seat in the United States on the silicon GuSheng jose NorthFirstStreet fabs, comes from the inside of the equipment including applied materials (AppliedMaterials), Hitachi (Hitachi), Novellus and ASML; The fabs monthly production capacity can reach 7000 pieces of 8 inch wafer, process node from 0.6 um to 90 nanometers. It is worth noting that the "sweet spot" in the analog wafer process, is still in 0.35 microns to 0.18 microns.

In addition we also know that apple one year for the iPhone and the number of analog components procurement, an estimated 20 to 2.5 billion dollars; Those commodities include customization of power management IC, with low levels of customization audio coding components, and various kinds of sensors, including movement sensor with a touch screen sensing element. If we want to bet apple will be in the new purchase fabs production which one of these three components, power management chip seems to be winning the most likely; Because no matter how ingenious, analog components can evolve as mature commodity supply source, but to a miniature power management IC function is still a challenge.

Intel (Intel), for example, try on Haswell series processor to integrate power management function, its goal is to put the PC on the motherboard power supply and cooling area to reduce, to encourage the growth of update generation mini PC host; But often it is not easy to use dozens of ampere power machine miniature, Intel even went back to using more traditional core voltage stabilizer (Vcoreregulator).

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In the case of mobile devices, power management IC is customized for each mobile phone or tablet device, and according to the mobile phone function, can be very complex; On a single chip up to 26 or 28 different elements, including 2 ~ 3 300 ma switching mode voltage stabilizer, 22 or 24 low dropout linear regulators ("), and lithium ion battery monitor controller, and a number of LED backlight driver. Apple is using DialogSemiconductor as the component suppliers.

To achieve such integration, need a lot of hard work, rather than any particular technology; You need to open/close "and other voltage controller order device (or pulse sequence), in response to come from the mobile application processor and the fundamental frequency of the processor's instruction. With BiCMOS or BCD process will power transistors into CMOS substrate method is by far the most well-known, even for those who need to abandon the memory system to build, to service the customer analogy for Asian fabs.

Implant can buffer from the power transistors to 0.18 ~ 0.13 micron process production of CMOS logic control power supply (battery or AC adapter); We can bet, apple from Maxim fabs should also contain transistors implantation mechanism.

Is used in the production of the sensor is reasonable?

Have analysts speculated that apple bought new fabs will support advanced sensors prototyping; A year spent on movement sensors purchasing amount is about $750 million, including the pedometer support localization services, can for navigation or advertising purposes, tracking your actions. It is worth mentioning that the United States sleep science at the university of California, Berkeley, researchers say, apple's iPhone built-in sensors sensitivity and resolution, is enough to put it under the mattress sleep monitoring users. If so, the wisdom of the Jawbone, companies such as Fitbit bracelet or the wisdom of each brand watch may be redundant.

Although apple should be a close cooperation with the sensor supplier very hard, especially in terms of price, but I don't feel the recent related technologies have any breakthrough. MEMS sensor manufacturing research and development has continued, in order to reduce the dependence on a large number of chemical etching; In the manufacturing process of MEMS, usually need to dig trench, tunnel or holes on the chip ─ ─ this is made in order to make amd xiaoke moving parts in which the mobile chamber ─ ─ and then hole sealed with moisture, or to prevent other environmental pollutants.

MEMS suppliers such as company, mCube had some special manufacturing technology; So far, apple has adopt from Bosch, company and STMicroelectronics (STMicroelectronics) of MEMS components. However, this goal is by reducing process steps to reduce the cost, does not involve the change of the sensor itself; And as more and more fabs specializing in the production of MEMS components, this is apple doesn't need to use their own research and development round the factory to solve the problem.

And problems involving RFMEMS components may need a wafer plant ─ ─ quantity more and more miniature antenna switch insertion cycle, may bring challenges for apple engineers; This is a problem of 20 years old, market research firm, an analyst with Semicon TonyMassimini believes that apple is very likely that manufacturers can successfully promote RFMEMS technology take off, and the company new fabs is for this purpose.

There are other challenges in the field of sensors, also may be apple is trying to overcome. Apple might, for example, to research and development by using spectrometer sensor semiconductor devices or other wavelengths of high-precision gas and chemical sensors are interested in. At present there are a large number of sensor technology industry are exploring new applications, such as have been built in the pulse oximetry AppleWatch, and skin moisture sensor probe and electrocardiogram.

A company is developing not mixed (immiscible) semiconductor devices, can be read at the molecular level of liquid chemical composition; There is another company developed infrared spectrometer, can provide molecular levels of food, medicine and fuel composition analysis. Although the success of these components, may depend on specially set-up of semiconductor process technology, it is hard to say whether apple will participate in the development.

Apple's application program interface iHealth, for example, make the sensor developers can more easily to link element with the iPhone, but the problem is that the company still on related developments of participation; And whether apple will really be behind a large number of analog product development? Let us continue to observe!