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Comment by btbuilder | Hacker News Reader

Do the chips get shipped to China for assembly?

There's a lot of chip packaging in Taiwan, Malaysia, and maybe Singapore so these A16s are probably racking up frequent flier miles. Probably not China though.

In the future they will probably be packaged in the US: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/11/apple-announces-expan...

Most likely frequent boating miles given their push to use water transport over air when possible for the environmental benefits.

I think they meant for assembly of the iPhones.

No. That was some misinformation. The chips are being fully packaged in the U.S.

I think "for assembly" here means iPhone assembly, ie. the final SoC will be sent to China to assemble the iPhone. I don't think GP is referring to packaging.

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Assembly of the phone or device using the processor.

we're talking about the chip itself. Not the phone

The dies themselves are "assembled" - cut from the wafer, bonded to the wires (or solder bumps) that carry signals to the rest of the system, and packaged for physical protection and thermal management.

In recent times, multi-chiplet architecture has added its own layer of complexity to that process.