Back in 2020, Apple’s A14 Bionic chipset and Huawei’s Kirin 9000 SoC were the first chips made by TSMC using its 5nm process node. Last year, TSMC produced the only 3nm chip used on a smartphone, the A17 Pro, which currently powers the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. As the process nodes drop in size, the transistors used by a chip get smaller which means more of them can fit inside the component. The higher a chip’s transistor count, the more powerful and/or energy efficient the chip is.
For example, when TSMC went from 5nm to 3nm for the A17 Pro SoC, CPU speeds were said to be 10% faster, GPU speeds increased by 20%, and the Neural Engine was 2x faster on the iPhone.
The Apple A17 Pro application processor made by TSMC is the only 3nm chipset current used by a smartphone
Just as Apple was the first (and so far, only) phone manufacturer to use a 3nm chipset to power some of its smartphones, DigiTimes (via MacRumors) says that the company will be the first to use a chipset produced using the 2nm process node once TSMC starts using 2nm to build chips for clients during the second half of 2025. TSMC’s 2nm production will debut its Gate-all-around (GAA) transistors which use vertically stacked horizontal nanosheets to allow the gate to cover the channel on all four sides. This reduces current leaks and increases the drive current.
Samsung Foundry already uses GAA transistors with its 3nm chips but TSMC won’t until its 2nm production begins. To accommodate the change to 2nm, TSMC is building two new fabs (chip fabrication facilities) and is seeking approval to build a third. Building the fabs for 2nm production will cost TSMC billions of dollars. But before we get to 2nm, TSMC will use enhanced versions of its 3nm node. Last year’s N3B 3nm process node will become this year’s enhanced N3E node and the following year’s N3P node. That takes us to 2nm by the second half of 2025. Lsst month, TSMC showed off to Apple a 2nm chip prototype.
And after 2nm, TSMC is expected to feature a 1.4nm process node starting in 2027. According to MacRumors, Apple is already looking to reserve production capacity for the first year of both 1.4nm capacity and 1nm capacity. Apple is TSMC’s largest client and is expected to get a discount from wafer prices which are supposed to rise to $25,000 for a 12-inch silicon wafer for 2nm production in 2025.
