The push toward smaller and more advanced chips isn’t slowing down anytime soon. A new report suggests TSMC is already looking beyond 2nm, with early plans for sub-1nm manufacturing starting to take shape.
According to DigiTimes, the company is targeting trial production of sub-1nm chips around 2029. Before that, TSMC is expected to bring its 1.4nm process (A14) into mass production in 2028. That node alone is said to offer noticeable gains in both performance and efficiency, reportedly in the range of 30 percent.
The sub-1nm phase, at least initially, won’t be large-scale. The report mentions a starting output of around 5,000 wafers per month, which suggests this will begin more as a testing ground than full production.
To support all this, TSMC is expected to rely on its facilities in Tainan, including the A10 fab and related plants. The timing lines up with increasing demand from areas like AI and high-performance computing, where even small efficiency gains can make a difference.
Apple is likely to be part of that early wave, as usual. The company has consistently been first in line for TSMC’s newest nodes, partly because of the scale it operates at. If things stay on track, it’s possible we could see sub-1nm chips in future MacBooks toward the end of the decade.
That said, there are still quite a few hurdles. TSMC first needs to stabilize its upcoming 1.6nm and 1.4nm processes, and moving below 1nm brings additional challenges around yields, EUV lithography, and heat. None of this is straightforward.
So while the roadmap looks ambitious, it’s still early. Plans at this stage tend to shift, especially when the technology involved is this complex.
Still, if TSMC manages to get there on time, it could be a fairly big step forward. Smaller nodes don’t just mean faster chips, they also help with efficiency, which matters just as much now.
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