iPhone memory chip supply could be disrupted by power outage at Samsung plant

A faulty transformer caused a power outage that halted six of Samsung Electronics' chip production lines on Friday afternoon.

The outage occurred at Samsung's Giheung complex outside of Seoul, disrupting production of flash memory, DRAM and logic chips, a company spokeswoman said. The outage will cost the company an estimated 50 billion won ($54 million).

Samsung would not say early Friday whether the outage is likely to affect supplies of memory chips to Apple, which uses Samsung's chips in its iPod and iPhone.

The operations should be restored within a day, the spokeswoman said.

Analysts said the interruption could lead to a severe shortage of NAND chips, according to Friday's Wall Street Journal newspaper, although it was unclear at the time of that report when the lines would be restored.