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SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Inc is famous for relying on low-cost Asian manufacturers to both source and assemble its popular gadgets, but the consumer device giant recently started receiving a critical component in its iPad and iPhones from closer to home - Texas.

The A5 processor - the brain in the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 - is now made in a sprawling 1.6 million square feet factory in Austin owned by Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics, according to people familiar with the operation.

One of the few major components to be sourced from within the United States, the A5 processor is built by Samsung in a newly constructed $3.6 billion non-memory chip production line that reached full production in early December.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/16/us-apple-samsung-idUSTRE7BF0D420111216

Perry Wins IPad and IPhone Vote (We CAN take on China and win!)…….”While the rest of the country has been suffering from Obama-itis (too much government regulations and power hungry unionism), Texas has been trying to make itself attractive to business (by limiting regulations, empowering free work rules, limiting frivolous lawsuits, educating ALL its people, limiting taxes) Which brings me back to the IPad and IPhone. As many of you know (well, at least the tech-knowledgeable among us), the brains of the IPAD and IPhone is the A5 chip. These chips are now made in Texas in a new $3.6 Billion facility. How big is this new facility? Well, to put it in terms any Texan would understand: Nine football fields. This is a major facility:

The A5 chip inside Apple’s iPad 2 and iPhone 4S is now being produced stateside (In Texas), according to Reuters. Sources familiar with Apple’s production details told the news organization that Samsung Electronics is now handling production of the A5 in Austin, Texas. Among manufactured products, the state’s leading export category is chemical manufactures, which accounted for $38.4 billion (20 percent) of Texas’ total merchandise exports in 2008. Other top 2008 manufactured exports were computers and electronic products ($35.2 billion), machinery manufactures ($27.3 billion), and petroleum and coal products ($25.3 billion).”…….