Over at Apple, the desire to create devices as thin as possible will probably not be going away anytime soon. In fact a recent report suggested that Apple might want to do away with the home button on the iPhone which would see Touch ID’s sensor embedded into the display itself, thus reducing the need for additional components.
Now according to a report from China Times (via G4Games), Apple could be considering miniaturizing the iPhone components even further by adopting the SiP (system in package) modular architecture which is used in the Apple Watch. The end result is like we said, it could result in miniaturized components which could lead to a thinner iPhone.
It could also lead to Apple being able to stuff a bigger battery into the iPhone, kind of like what they have done with the 12-inch Retina MacBook where they managed to shrink the motherboard of the computer to the size of an iPhone, ultimately allowing them to increase the amount of batteries they could fit into the laptop’s chassis.
For those wondering what SiPs are, it differs a bit from what most smartphone OEMs use at the moment which are SoCs, a system on a chip in which components such as the processor, RAM, IO ports, and etc. are housed on a single microchip. An SiP on the other hand are individual components that can be manufactured independently and using different processes (CPU 28nm, memory in 14nm, etc.) and are assembled into a single package, like in the case of the Apple Watch.
Naturally there will be some trade-offs in terms of power, performance, and pricing of manufacturing the components, but we suppose at the end of the day it’s up to Apple to balance the desire for ultra-thin products with functionality. Of course this is also a rumor which is best taken with a grain of salt for now. [Image credit – iFixit]
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