Who Manufactures Apple's iPhone Camera?

Despite meticulous tear-downs of every model of iPhone that came before, the exact manufacturers of many of the components for the iPhone 4, 4S and 5 remained unconfirmed. Many of the major parts are clearly labelled with Broadcom, Skyworks, Samsung and other familiar names, but few of the individual smaller component parts bear distinguishing manufacturer names or symbols, whether from the necessity of size or Apple's insistence.

With so many separate parts, the potential number of individual manufacturers increases. Apple has solid reasons to divide the duties between multiple companies -- purchasing power and increased secrecy, for example. Still, some of the manufacturers have been revealed by iPhone tear-downs, and others have been named by analysts with access to manufacturer supply chain paperwork.

The iPhone cameras, like most smartphones and digital cameras, have sensors that use CMOS, or complementary metal oxide semiconductor, technology to convert light to electrons. The sensor is protected by a clear cover -- a sapphire crystal in the iPhone 5 -- that is often referred to incorrectly as a lens, although the five-element lens module is a separate component altogether. Additionally, the backside illumination component and image processing chip also can be considered camera parts.

Tear-down of the rear-facing camera revealed a tiny but unmistakable inscription confirming that Sony manufactured the 8-megapixel sensor, while the front-facing sensor was likewise shown to be by Omnivision. The lens modules themselves bear no such identification, but Taiwanese manufacturers Largan Precision and Genius Electronic Optical have been named as suppliers for the iPhone 4, 4S and 5 -- with the iPhone 5 manifests also listing Japanese optical manufacturer Kantatsu.