Apple has certainly hit the nail on the head by choosing TSMC as the manufacturer of its processors. Its high specialization gives rise to new chips that are more and more efficient, with very advanced technologies.
She already manufactures the A15 of the iPhone 13 with a 5nm architecture, but the next chips for Apple devices will already be in 4nm, and those in 3nm are already in the testing phase. A last.
A report which has just been published by Nikkei, assures that TSMC and Intel are ready to manufacture processors with the technology of 3 nm. This means that they will be much more efficient chips than the current, 5nm chips.
This article explains that Apple’s first 3nm chip will likely arrive in an iPad (presumably a Pro model). the iPhone 14 will use a larger 4nm SoC due to programming throughputs / shipping times. It would still be an improvement over the 5nm chip design seen in the iPhone 12 and which will continue to ride in the iPhone 13 this year.
The famous nanometer (nm) is the distance between transistors on a chip. As the size of the process decreases, the gaps between the transistors are reduced. This usually results in a more energy efficient and performant design.
For iPhones launched this year, they will mount an Apple A15 chip built in a size of 5 nm which are already in the mass production phase, to be able to launch them in September of this year.
In two years, Apple will adopt the processors of 3 nm for all your devices, covering iPhones, iPads and Macs. The logical thing to do is start with the iPad Pro first, from a logistics standpoint. It will be a new version of the current Apple M1. Who knows if the M2, or already a new M3 …
