Something Made in America

anisa — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:10:25 GMT

Apple's iPhone, iPad chip now made in Texas

CNN) -- Apple's A5 chip, which powers the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2, is now being produced in a Texas factory owned by Samsung, Reuters reports, citing sources familiar with the operation.

Until now, Apple has mainly relied on Korean and Chinese manufacturers that produced the chips for Apple's products on their soil.

Samsung's new $3.6 billion plant in Austin is the size of nine football fields (1.6 million square feet), and it's almost solely dedicated to producing Apple chips.

The factory employs some 1,100 workers and it reached full productive capacity this month.

This is good news for the city of Austin, where Samsung already has a NAND flash memory factory. According to the Austin Chamber of Commerce, Samsung's factory is the largest foreign investment in Texas, worth about $9 billion.

The 45 nm Apple A5 chip runs on either 800 MHz or 1 GHz clock speed, and it's twice as powerful -- according to Apple -- as its predecessor, the A4.

Interestingly enough, Samsung is producing chips for Apple, although the two companies still haven't resolved their patent war that has been raging on for months.

Both Samsung and Apple declined to comment on the deal.

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