Apple's strategy of utilizing faulty chips has been revealed to date back to the original iPad and iPhone 4, according to a recent report. This practice, known as chip binning, allows the company to repurpose chips that failed quality control for use in various products, significantly enhancing cost efficiency.
Notably, the MacBook Air has been a prime example of this approach, where the base model features a 7-core GPU instead of the 8-core variant found in the higher-spec model. Instead of requesting a separate production of lower-spec chips from TSMC, Apple allocates the less capable chips to the entry-level version, maximizing yield and minimizing waste.
Additionally, the MacBook Neo has seen substantial demand, leading Apple to exhaust its supply of binned A18 Pro chips, which were previously rejected for the iPhone 16 Pro. The report from the Wall Street Journal also cites five other products using binned chips, including the A15 Bionic in the iPhone SE and the A19 Pro in the iPhone Air, illustrating the wide-ranging implications of this practice across Apple's product line.