Korea IT News reports that Apple is applying a shielding technology that blocks EMI in the iPhone 7.
It is a measure to increase performance while decreasing electromagnetic interference to major chips and to solve people’s fear on electromagnetic waves from smartphones. The shielding is being applied to variety of digital chips, radio frequency (RF) connectivity (wireless LAN, Bluetooth) chips and others that also include AP (application processor) and modems.
One industry insider stated that, “As clock signals of digital chips have increased and as diverse functions such as 3D-touch and others have recently added, reduction of electromagnetic waves have emerged as a major topic of this industry.”
Although Apple has been applying this technology to PC boards and connectors, this is the first time it is applying this technology to most of major chips. It has decided to use this technology due to interference in wireless communication and others as clock signals of digital chips have gradually increased.
The additional shielding will likely increase the manufacturing cost and assembly time. Korean companies, StatsChipPac and Amkor, will be responsible for the EMI shield process on major chips of the iPhone 7.
Apple first applied EMI Shield technology to major chip packages in the Apple Watch that was released last year.
While Apple has experimented with using EMI shielding since the iPhone 6, it limited its use to the logic board, according to iFixit.com. Today’s news simply confirms that Apple is expanding the use of EMI shielding to other products..
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Amkor Korea manufacturing plant. Image, courtesy Korea IT News.
