Leaked iPhone 6s motherboard reveals new NFC chip, 16GB base storage, and more

BY Rajesh Pandey

Published 3 Jul 2015

iPhone 6s motherboard

A close look at some of the leaked images of the iPhone 6s motherboard from the folks behind 9to5Mac and Chipworks reveals that it will be slightly smaller than the iPhone 6’s motherboard and feature lesser chips. 

Additionally, it will come with a new NFC chip from NXP. Currently, Apple uses the NXP 65V10 NFC processor inside the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, but for its upcoming iPhones, it will be using NXP’s 66VP2 chip. It is unclear what advantages this new chip has over its predecessor, but it is likely that it will feature an integrated secure element that will eliminate the need for a separate one.

iphone-6s-storage

The leaked images of the iPhone 6s motherboard also reveals that Apple is greatly reducing the number of chips it uses on the motherboard and improving the efficiency of rest.

One section of the board that previously had in excess of 10 components has been pared down to 3 main chips, simultaneously cutting the number of parts and increasing the power efficiency of the ones that remain.

Apple will be also retaining the iPhone 6’s Cirrus Logic audio chip, Murata’s Wi-Fi module, and power amplifiers from RFMD and other companies on the next-generation iPhones.

Disappointingly, the leaked images of the iPhone 6s motherboard come with a 16GB NAND flash storage chip from Toshiba. Apple has been heavily criticized for offering the base model of the iPhone with only 16GB of storage space. While it is possible that the final retail units of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus will come with 32GB of storage space, it does seem unlikely once you factor in the comments made by Apple’s SVP Phil Schiller on iPhones coming with 16GB of storage space.

In addition to the above images, 9to5Mac also received purported drawings of the iPhone 6s from a case maker. The drawings reveal that the iPhone 6s will look exactly like its predecessor, though it will be thicker, wider and taller by 0.13mm, 0.16mm and 0.13mm, respectively. These slight changes in dimensions of the upcoming iPhone will be unnoticeable by human eye, and will also make sure that the iPhone 6s will retain compatibility with existing iPhone 6 cases in the market. In fact, the differences are so small that Apple might not even highlight them when it launches the iPhone 6s later this year.

Previous reports have mentioned that the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus will be slightly thicker and bigger than their predecessor due to Force Touch.

Earlier this week, purported images of the casing of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus had also leaked along with details about its faster LTE modem.

[Via 9to5Mac]