Much has been written — especially in China — about the case of Sun Danyong, the 25-year-old Foxconn employee who jumped to his death from a 12th-story apartment in Shenzhen two weeks ago after being interrogated about a missing next-generation iPhone prototype.

The story cast a harsh light on working conditions at Foxconn — the brand name of Taiwan-based Hon Hai, one of the world's largest manufacturers of computer components — and the culture of secrecy that surrounds Apple (AAPL) product development. (Apple issued a statement last week that it was "saddened by the tragic loss of this young employee.")

Monday's New York Times moves the story forward in several new directions — including Foxconn's claim that products in Sun's charge had gone missing before and a report that the company has tried to make amends by giving Sun's girlfriend an Apple laptop computer and his family 300,000 renminbi, or more than $44,000.

[UPDATE: The Associated Press, quoting an unnamed Foxconn official, reported a higher figure Tuesday: $52,600 to the parents, plus $4,385 per year as long as either of them remains alive.]

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[Update: Barron's Eric Savitz suggests here that when DigiTimes writes "total shipments of 3G iPhones are expected to top 10 million units in the third quarter" it means BY the third quarter, not IN the third quarter. We suspect he is right. Headline and body of text corrected accordingly.]

With the simultaneous launch of the iPhone 3G in 22 countries on July 11, Apple's Taiwanese suppiers are anticipating a bigger-than-expected ramp-up in the third quarter of 2008, according to a report Thursday in Taipei-based DigitTimes.

DigiTimes' report is based on an article in the Chinese-language Commercial Times, a publication with unusually good sources among Apple's far-eastern component manufacturers and assemblers. It quotes an unnamed supplier to the effect that these component makers expect to ship 10 million units to Apple before Sept. 30.

Apple's (AAPL) oft-repeated target is to sell 10 million iPhones in all of 2008. As of June 9, the company had sold 6 million first-generation iPhones, according to Steve Jobs. The company reported more than 3.7 million sold in 2007, which means some 2.3 million have already been sold so far this year.

DigiTimes also translates and reprints a list of the iPhone's suppliers that was compiled by Commercial Times. We've copied it below. As AppleInsider notes, Infineon (IFX), Broadcom (BRCM) and Foxconn (Hon Hai) look like the big winners.

It should be no surprise that Apple has turned to Foxconn, the trade name for Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., to build the next generation iPhone.

China's Commercial Times reported early Friday that Foxconn was competing for the business, and the Dow Jones newswire, citing "a person familiar with the situation," now reports that Apple (AAPL) has awarded the Taiwan-based firm the exclusive contract. (link)

Apple has chosen a supplier it knows and trusts. Although it keeps a relatively low profile in the United States, Foxconn is one of the world's largest manufacturers of electronics and computer components. It built many of the first generation iPhones, as well as MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, iPod nanos and Mac Minis.

It also makes motherboards for Intel (INTC), Dell (DEL) and HP (HPQ), Playstations for Sony (SNE), Wii's for Nintendo, Xbox 360s for Microsoft (MSFT), cell phones for Motorola (MOT) and Kindles for Amazon (AMZN).

Foxconn employs nearly half a million people and does most of its manufacturing in mainland China. It was China's largest exporter in 2007.

In 2006 the British press charged that it used abusive employment practices. Apple investigated those charges and declared them largely unfounded, although the company did find that some Foxconn employees were working longer than the 60 hours a week Apple's Code of Conduct finds acceptable.