HIGHLIGHTS
- Apple will use 3nm TSMC chips for its future Macs and iPhones.
- TSMC’s new chips will offer improved performance.
- The new chips will be more energy efficient than current gen SoCs.
2020 has seen Apple go big on the chip-making business after the company announced the Apple Silicon M1 chips. This particular chipset promises a lot of power and good energy efficiency all rolled into one. While the chip’s architecture is definitely an important reason behind its fine performance, another major factor is its ability to pack in millions of extra transistors because of being fabricated using an advanced 5nm process.
However, it appears Apple chips in the future are going to be faster and more energy-efficient, as the company has decided to use chipsets fabricated using TSMC’s new 3-nanometer process. These chips are expected to be used on both iOS and Apple SIlicon-based Macbooks.
Latest reports claim that Apple has placed an order for its M-series and A-series processors using it. The report coming courtesy of Money.UDN reveals that supply chain sources say that TSMC’s 3nm line is on course to produce 600,000 chips annually, or 50,000 per month, with mass production, starting in 2022. The report also adds that Apple has placed an order for the initial batch of chips from the equipment maker, and plans to use them in its Macs and also upcoming iPhones.
Money.UDN claims that the 3nm chips will be used for iPads and Macbook devices initially. However, these chips will eventually make their way to the iPhone. Previous rumors have said the 3nm process will be ready to make the “A16” chip in 2022.
As far as what we can expect from the chips, TSMC in the past has said that its 3nm chips will bring a performance increase of between 10% and 15% over even its recent 5nm process. It’s also said that 3nm chips will offer between 20% and 25% increased energy saving.
Interestingly, this is not the only new process that TSMC is working on. Reports say that before launching the 3nm chips, the company will also go ahead and launch a new 4nm fabrication module for chipsets. These will offer better performance than 5nm chips but are also expected to face a lot of competition because Samsung is also tipped to start work on its very own 4nm chips.
