Apple has trimmed some of its 2026 hardware shipment plans because of the ongoing memory chip shortage, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who closely tracks Apple’s supply chain. That part of the story checks out and matches what’s been reported elsewhere about memory constraints rippling through the tech industry this year. What doesn’t check out, according to Kuo, is a separate claim that TSMC is sitting on roughly $1 billion worth of unused Apple processor wafers while it waits for memory chips to pair them with.
The reasoning here is straightforward. Apple reportedly plans its processor production at TSMC at least three months ahead of time, based on expected memory availability at that point, not on hope that supply will sort itself out later. That planning window makes the idea of Apple mass-producing processors and then leaving them stranded at TSMC for lack of memory logically inconsistent with how the company actually manages production, at least based on Kuo’s current checks.
So the accurate version of this story isn’t “Apple has a billion dollars in stuck chips.” It’s closer to “the memory shortage is real and affecting Apple’s plans, but a specific number tied to stranded TSMC inventory isn’t holding up.” Those are different problems with very different implications. One describes normal supply-chain adjustment in a tight memory market. The other would suggest a serious planning failure at Apple, which the available evidence doesn’t currently support.
For anyone tracking iPhone or Mac supply heading into 2026, the more useful data point is the confirmed one: Apple is scaling back some shipment targets because memory is tight, not because of a processor pileup at its manufacturing partner.
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