Apple’s silicon producer TSMC is struggling with the manufacturing of its next-gen 3 nm-based process, revealed in a report today from The Information. The report takes a closer look at the inner workings of their business relationship and also sheds light on TSMC’s struggle to transition to a 3nm process.
Looks like the iPhone 14 might be stuck on 5nm chips as reports suggest TSMC is having issues with its 3nm silicon process, which it had promised to deliver by the second half of 2022. The 3nm chips would have offered a more powerful, energy-efficient processor in the device without a significant increase in the die size.
Regardless of this setback, the iPhone 14 might still receive an upgrade in its processor over the last generation as TSMC is all set to manufacture its N4P process which is an improvement of the 5nm processor(N5P) currently being used in the iPhone 13. As the third major enhancement of TSMC’s 5nm family, N4P is claimed to deliver an 11% performance boost over the original N5 technology. Compared to N5P, N4P will also deliver a 22% improvement in power efficiency as well as a 6% improvement in transistor density. In addition, N4P lowers process complexity and improves wafer cycle time, which is the need of the hour in the ongoing global chip shortage.
On the other hand, this delay also creates opportunities for competing chip manufacturers such as Samsung to catch up to TSMC and even be the first to reach the 3nm process.
While this might be the case, Apple is said to have secured an early shipment of the N4P chips to gain an edge over its competition Qualcomm, which is also setting up to release their upcoming snapdragon 898 on TSMC’s 4nm process.
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