Taiwanese trade zine DigiTimes has let out an interesting bit of news regarding Apple's next big thing, the iPhone 7 and anyone else from the family that may come up in September! Reportedly, Apple has already made orders for display driver chips from renowned supplier Synaptics. While there's hardly anything surprising about Cupertino's choice for supplier, interestingly enough, Apple had plans for developing its own touch and display driver.
In fact, back in 2014, Apple had considered acquiring Renesas SP Drivers, a division of tech firm Renesas Electronics and the sole supplier of LCD driver chips for iPhones at the time. Apple considered the move with the aim of "improving image sharpness and battery life" on its smartphones. However, negotiations fell apart and Renesas ended up property of none other than Synaptics, which was interested in integrating its touchscreen controller with Renesas' display driver.
DigiTimes's educated guess is that Apple dealing with Synaptics means its solution won't arrive in time for the iPhone 7. Moreover, we get to learn that Apple did hire senior engineers from Renesas as it intends to complete its in-house iPhone display driver chip project. This type of solution will let the company optimize battery life and introduce additional optimizations, while reducing the number of chips ticking inside the iPhone.
