Apple and its manufacturing partners are racing to secure mobile DRAM chips just weeks before the expected fall debut of the iPhone 18 Pro and the company’s first foldable device, widely rumoured to be named the ‘iPhone Ultra.’ According to semiconductor analyst Tim Culpan, roughly $1 billion worth of Apple’s newest processors are currently sitting idle, unable to complete final packaging because necessary memory chips have not arrived (via MacRumors). At the heart of the issue is TSMC’s manufacturing process. The upcoming flagship lineup relies on Apple’s new A20 Pro system-on-chip, built using TSMC’s cutting-edge N2 process node. Data center expansion has consumed enormous volumes of high-performance memory, squeezing the global supply chain for consumer-grade mobile DRAM.