On August 11, reports surfaced suggesting that TSMC’s production of A20 Pro (2nm/N2) processors for Apple, valued at approximately $1 billion, had been halted at the packaging stage due to a shortage of memory chips. This, the reports claimed, had led to a significant backlog at TSMC’s facilities. Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has refuted these claims. While he acknowledged that Apple has indeed scaled back its hardware shipment projections for the year due to memory shortages, he emphasized that Apple’s strategy involves planning TSMC’s processor production three months in advance, aligning it with expected memory availability. This approach, Kuo explained, prevents TSMC from accumulating excessive work-in-process inventory. According to Kuo, there is no evidence to support the notion that TSMC has amassed $1 billion worth of unfinished processors while awaiting memory chips for packaging. Such a scenario, he noted, would be highly unusual given the tight coordination between TSMC and Apple’s supply chain operations.