iPhone 18 Pro and Foldable iPhone Could Sell Out Fast Due to Memory Shortage

The iPhone 18 Pro, ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max, and foldable "iPhone Ultra" could be in short supply this year, leading to long wait times and an initial sellout during preorders. Semiconductor analyst Tim Culpan says Apple is having trouble getting enough DRAM to finish production of the new iPhone models, and chip supplier TSMC has $1 billion worth of unpackaged processors waiting on memory chips. Apple's new A20 Pro chips are built on TSMC's 2nm process and use Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module packaging to integrate the processor and DRAM at the wafer level. Unfortunately, that means TSMC needs to have the DRAM on hand for assembly, and it can't be added at a later step. Apple is not able to stockpile finished dies and then add DRAM when it becomes available. Apple and its assemblers think they can meet initial demand, but retail inventory could sell quickly, leading to prolonged delivery estimates. The chip backlog will delay main logic board assembly and final device