Roger Fingas
One of Apple's primary chip manufacturers, TSMC, confirmed in a Tuesday report to shareholders that it plans to trial 7-nanometer production in the first half of next year, working towards mass production in the first half of 2018.
The company already has over 20 customers interested in the 7-nanometer technology, and 15 of them should have chip designs taped out for manufacturing in 2017, according to co-CEO Mark Liu, quoted by DigiTimes. It's not clear whether Apple might be one of them.
The new process is however expected to be applied to mobile processors, and TSMC is currently manufacturing Apple's A9 and A9X chips, though some A9 orders are being handled by Samsung. TSMC could become the sole producer of "A10" chips for devices rolling out later this year.
Apple could theoretically use 7-nanometer processors in an "iPhone 8" shipping in late 2018, but the company might have to settle for 10-nanometer designs instead, depending on the state and scale of TSMC's capacity by the time Apple is lining up orders. The intense global demand for Apple products means that a supplier will often have to go full-tilt to complete orders.
For comparison, A9 chips use 14- or 16-nanometer designs — depending on whether they're manufactured by Samsung or TSMC, respectively. Smaller chips should allow not just for more compact devices, but better power efficiency.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
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Malcolm Owen
9 Comments
More power to TSMC for 7nm 2018 1st half mass production. But, but I doubt it strongly based on history. Hard to believe Apple processor will follow path of 16nm iphone 6s,7, 10nm iphone 8 and 7nm iphone 9. Three node changes in 3 years. Possible is 10nm iphone 8,9 and 7nm iphone 10.
In 2018 Apple will ship the iPhone 8, not iPhone 9, if their historical naming pattern continues.
Perhaps TSMC won't have the capacity to meet iPhone demand for the 7 nm chip, but Apple could stimulate healthy demand for the Watch by building a 7 nm S series CPU with InFO. Such a chip would allow for power savings and performance unheard of in a diminutive chip.
I would definitely purchase such a device.
I just wanna see TSMC make more money from Apple than Sammy. So that the copycat will have less for R&D
I think we have about reached the end of the road with silicon. Moore's law is no more. We are going to need a smaller atom to continue shrinking the chips.