There's no good reason to suspect these are authentication chips. See, e.g. http...

There's no good reason to suspect these are authentication chips. See, e.g. http://brockerhoff.net/blog/2012/09/23/boom-pins/

Just like Thunderbolt, the chip is most likely used to make the cable adaptive (so that all pins can be used for data, or power, as-needed).

Quoting the author:

  I really see no justification for the “authentication chip” hypothesis, and even 
  their diagram doesn’t show any single “power pin of the Lightning plug”. It’s clear 
  that, once the cable’s type has been negotiated with the device, and the device has 
  checked if there’s a charger, a peripheral or a computer on the other end, the power 
  input from the USB side is switched to however many pins are required to carry the 
  available current.