TSMC starting production of 3nm chips for Mac, iPhone

Within days, TSMC will start mass production of its 3-nanometer chip process for the next generations of Mac, iPhone, and other Apple devices.

According to a report on Monday from DigiTimes, TSMC will hold a ceremony at Fab 18 at the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) on December 29 to mark the occasion. It will also reveal plans to expand 3-nanometer chip production at the fab.

Apple currently uses 4-nanometer chips from TSMC in the iPhone 14 Pro models, which is the A16 Bionic chip.

TSMC began testing the 3-nanometer process in December 2021 at Fab 18. A rumor in June claimed that Apple could use the new chip process in its M2 Pro chip in certain Macs that will ship in 2023.

The chip may appear in an updated Mac mini, 14-inch MacBook Pro, and 16-inch MacBook Pro expected to debut in 2023.

TSMC's 3nm processes would provide multiple benefits to Apple, including a predicted 15% speed improvement at the same power level as a chip made using 5nm processes, or a 30% reduction in power consumption for similar speeds.

17 Comments

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

About 1 year ago

So how close is the competition to this or are TSMC and Apple now leaving the others in the dust? What are Qualcomm, Samsung, and Intel up to? Still speed+tons of heat?

macxpress 5910 comments · 16 Years

lkrupp said:

So how close is the competition to this or are TSMC and Apple now leaving the others in the dust? What are Qualcomm, Samsung, and Intel up to? Still speed+tons of heat?

Sounds like their competitors are developing an M1 killer! lol

As always their competition focus's on the current and not the future. Their competition shouldn't be developing an M1 killer...they should be focusing on an M3 killer. By the time they have an M1 killer out Apple will have an M3 or M4 released.

nubus 611 comments · 8 Years

It was expected for TSMC to drop the N3 process due to limited performance improvements and problems with energy consumption. Instead we get it. If this is more than "we promised to start production before end of year" then MacBook Pro and Studio are prime candidates for N3. M2 will likely never end up in.a MacBook Pro and M3 might be "1st generation 3nm".

mikethemartian 1486 comments · 18 Years

lkrupp said:

So how close is the competition to this or are TSMC and Apple now leaving the others in the dust? What are Qualcomm, Samsung, and Intel up to? Still speed+tons of heat?

Well ASML makes the machines that TSMC uses and the very first of ASML’s next generation high numerical aperture machines is going to Intel. It all depends on what sort of process advantages TSMC might have on other fabs that use the ASML equipment and how well optimized their PDK is.

JinTech 1056 comments · 9 Years

nubus said:

It was expected for TSMC to drop the N3 process due to limited performance improvements and problems with energy consumption. Instead we get it. If this is more than "we promised to start production before end of year" then MacBook Pro and Studio are prime candidates for N3. M2 will likely never end up in.a MacBook Pro and M3 might be "1st generation 3nm".

It’s possible these chips are indeed M3 chips based on what the iPhone 15 Pro Max phones will have. If they are putting M series chips in iPads, perhaps they will start putting them in iPhones. Kind of a convoluted mess but hey, as long as we get the speed, efficiency and the fastest chips out there, who cares how Apple does it? That’s for marketing to sort out :smiley: