TSMC, the world’s largest chipset manufacturer, had started mass-production of 5nm chips for the past few months. Now, it is being reported that the company’s facility for the production of 5nm chips has been fully booked by Apple.
According to the latest report coming from China, the Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company will be making chips for the iPhone 12, iPad Air, 5G iPad Pro, and the upcoming MacBook.
It seems like TSMC is giving preferential treatment to Apple given that almost one-fifth of the company’s total revenue comes from the Cupertino-based tech giant. The company reportedly started mass-production of 5nm chipset from March this year and will continue making chipsets for only for Apple this year.
As per the reports, Apple had ordered components for up to 80 million iPhone 12 units but the actual number manufactured this year may end up being 74 million at most. The remaining units would be deferred to next year.
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This move from TSMC could be the reason behind Samsung having started mass-production of Qualcomm Snapdragon 875 flagship chipset. If Qualcomm wants to stick to its usual schedule of launching new Snapdragon-series flagship SoC in December, then it has to start mass-production and Samsung is the only other manufacturer having technology for making chips on 5nm node.
Apart from SD875, Samsung is also reportedly working on the production of its own Exynos 992 SoC, which could power the company’s upcoming flagship smartphones. It is also reportedly designing custom chipset for Google.
Huawei is also expected to soon launch its Kirin 9000 SoC, which is based on a 5nm chipset. The company had reportedly ordered 15 million units to TSMC but only 8.8 million units are available and now with the new sanctions, the Chinese giant won’t be able to procure more units of this chipset.
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