iPhone 18 Pro Release Might Be Delayed Due to Memory Shortage

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. Production of the underlying silicon wafers is progressing smoothly with solid manufacturing yields, but the chips cannot move on to the final packaging stage without matching mobile DRAM modules.

Because processors and DRAM are packaged together into a single component before being soldered onto a phone’s main logic board, unpackaged chips are piling up fast. Culpan estimates that TSMC holds approximately $1 billion in finished silicon wafers that are completely stalled waiting on RAM.

This supply delay threatens to compress assembly schedules at major manufacturing hubs like Foxconn and BYD. Main logic board assembly and final device packaging are being pushed closer to launch dates, increasing the risk of early supply shortfalls.

The root cause of the squeeze is the ongoing surge in AI infrastructure investments across the tech sector. Data center expansion has consumed enormous volumes of high-performance memory, squeezing the global supply chain for consumer-grade mobile DRAM. The memory crunch has already influenced Apple’s product strategies across other hardware lines, contributing to recent price adjustments and shifts in manufacturing priorities across the Mac family.

Whether Apple can clear the $1 billion chip backlog in time to avoid extended shipping wait times will depend entirely on how fast new shipments of DRAM reach TSMC’s packaging plants over the coming weeks.