File this under: Whoa. According to DigiTimes, Apple has placed orders for up to 100 million 8GB NAND flash memory chips. Gee, what would Apple want to do with that many chips?One hundred million 8GB chips is a lot of memory. The order is so large, says DigiTimes, that it is causing tight supply in the market. It reports, "Contract prices for MLC NAND flash chips have increased by up to 16% for the first half of April, as a result of shipment adjustments by chip suppliers."

Most of the chips for Apple will come from Samsung, which is the world's largest supplier of NAND flash. It appears that Nokia and Sony are also beefing up their supplies of flash memory, though the DigiTimes doesn't have figures.

This and other reports suggest that Apple is ramping up production of the next-generation iPhone. Lest you think that any new device would be limited to just 8GB (which seems a skimpy amount), keep in mind, Apple may use multiple chips inside one device. With 100 million chips on hand, Apple will be able to supply millions of iPhones and iPods with all sorts of different memory configurations, including 8GB, 16GB, 24GB, 32GB and so on.

We also know that Apple has ordered 3.2- and 5.0-megapixel camera modules, and that iPhone OS 3.0 (which is great, by the way) will support video capture.

Tie everything together, and Apple just might have something really interesting to announce at WWDC in June.