Don’t put too much stock in this rumor–the news that comes from these third-party parts manufacturers is spotty at best. That said, we have seen some of these come to fruition in the past, and let’s face it, if there’s one thing we do seemingly no for sure, it’s that Steve Jobs is going to show off a new iPad next year.

And if Apple goes according to its prior scheduling for the device (the company is often a creature of habit when it comes to updating products), we’re going to see that iPad 2 early next year, seeing as how the first model was unveiled in January of this year.

Apple supplier Foxconn Electronics has reportedly been told to ship 400,000-600,000 iPad 2 units in the next 100 days, according to Digitimes‘ “sources from Taiwan-based component makers.”

Here’s what those sources had to say,

[T]he iPad 2 will ship as soon as the end of February in 2011. Apple originally planned to start mass production in January, but because the device’s firmware is currently still in testing, Apple has been postponing the schedule. Since Foxconn’s new plants in Chengdu are still in pilot production, iPad 2 will be mainly supplied by its Shenzhen plants, while the company’s upstream component partners have all been notified of the shipments schedule.

Foxconn naturally declined DigiTimes’ request for comment. My guess is that the site didn’t even attempt to contact Apple…