Market rumors claim TSMC is holding onto a billion-dollar stockpile of Apple chips due to not having enough memory to complete packaging. On August 10, TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote about market rumors that TSMC had a stockpile of 2-nanometer chips made for Apple. The apparent reason was due to a DRAM supply shortage, because Apple has memory attached to the System on Chip (SoC) for its Apple Silicon chips. But, since the bottleneck isn't TSMC, Kuo says Apple has "little reason" to pay TSMC to make the stockpile in the first place. Partly because TSMC's inventory includes finished goods, raw materials, supplies, and spare parts as well as semi-completed items.