Amidst the ongoing turmoil in its semiconductor chip business, Samsung has scored a massive win. Apple has announced that Samsung will make advanced chips for Apple devices, including iPhones, at its Taylor chip plant in Texas, USA. The iPhone maker said the chips will be made using “an innovative new technology.“

Apple has announced that it is working with several brands to bring more jobs and manufacturing to the USA. One of those announcements is related to advanced chips that Samsung will make for Apple devices, including future iPhones. The chips will be made using an innovative new technology that has never been used anywhere else in the world.

Those Samsung-made chips will help Apple optimize power and performance of its products, including iPhones. While the announcement is pretty vague, a report from TheElec (via @Jukanlosreve) claims that they are CMOS Image Sensors (CIS), commonly known as camera sensors. Apparently, Samsung is developing 3-stack hybrid bonding CIS that could be used in the iPhone 18 lineup in 2026.

The South Korean firm has reportedly converted a part of its S1 foundry fab line in Austin, Texas, into a CIS production line that will have a capacity of making 10,000 wafers per month. Operations on this line are expected to start from March 2026, which will give Samsung enough time to make millions of camera sensors for the iPhone 18 series.

The 3-stack camera sensor reportedly has three wafers: photo diode, transistor, and logic (includes an analog-to-digital converter). These wafers are bonded together using copper pads. This method is claimed to allow the chip to have smaller individual pixels while reducing interference, thereby reducing noise from images and videos.

This would be the first instance of camera sensors being made in the USA. Samsung and Sony are the only companies in the world that can make such chips, and Apple is tying up with Samsung because the South Korean firm has manufacturing plants in the USA, and Apple wants to source chips locally, allowing it to be exempt from tariffs that the Trump government is applying on products that are being imported from other countries. Sony makes its camera chips only in Japan.

The iPhone maker said it will source 19 billion semiconductor chips from the USA and invest a total of more than $600 billion in the country over the next four years to build local manufacturing capabilities.

Samsung seems to be turning around its struggling semiconductor chip business. Recently, it bagged a massive $16.5 billion contract to make 2nm AI chips for Tesla. It also seems to be close to getting an approval to supply its HBM3E chips to the world's most valuable firm, Nvidia. It is also planning to equip its flagship 2nm Exynos 2600 chip in the Galaxy S26 series next year.