Apple's camera setup for the iPhone 18 lineup, which will only launch in the second half of 2026, is already spurring a flurry of activity across Samsung Electronics, its subsidiary SEMES, Japan's ADVANTEST and INTER ACTION, and South Korea's Doosan Tesna.
The Elec: A South Korean Semiconductor Testing Company Is Gearing Up To Spend $123 Million To Test Samsung's Image Sensors For The Apple iPhone 18's Camera Setup
The South Korean publication The Elec is now reporting that Doosan Tesna, a South Korean post-process semiconductor testing company, is preparing to spend a whopping $123 million, which equals nearly 22 percent of its total assets, to acquire test systems from:
- Japan's ADVANTEST Corporation - a company that specializes in Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) and other measuring instruments.
- SEMES - a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics that produces equipment for front-end production of semiconductors, as well as a variety of tools used in display fabrication.
- Japan's INTER ACTION - a producer of a variety of sensors.
These test systems will be presumably used within Samsung's new image sensor production line in Austin, Texas, which will produce the camera components for the iPhone 18.
Do note that there is an apparent discrepancy within the report, which states that Apple's iPhone 18 will launch in 2027, when in reality the lineup is expected to debut in the second half of 2026.
Of course, the iPhone 18 will mark the first time in around a decade when Apple will source camera components from Samsung. Sony has been Apple's primary camera components supplier in the intervening years.
As for Doosan Tesna itself, the company primarily specializes in identifying defective chips before packaging. Its expertise extends to Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) sensors, which are semiconductor devices that capture images by converting light into electrical signals.
This report comes as we recently reported that Apple is gearing up to bring variable aperture technology to the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max variants next year, unlocking material improvements to the variants' still imaging and video recording abilities.
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