According to a new report from Taiwan today, Apple is basically clamping down on TSMC’s supply of 3nm chips this year. TSMC will apparently see 3nm core process technology dominate 90% of its 3nm family capacity in 2023, and nearly 90% of that 3nm core capacity has already been reserved by Apple for use in new iPhones, MacBooks and iPads.
Both the A17 and M3 are expected to be manufactured using TSMC’s 3nm process. Reports of Apple placing orders for 3nm chips go back as far as 2020, so the company is clearly playing the long game here. The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are said to be the first smartphones powered by a 3nm chipset.
This 3nm technology is believed to be responsible for a 35% energy efficiency improvement and 15% performance boost for the A17 over the 4nm A16 found in the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. As for computers, an updated 13-inch MacBook Air and a new 24-inch iMac may be the first to use the M3 chip, which is also made in a 3nm process.
If all of this pans out, then Qualcomm, Samsung and MediaTek could fight for the remaining 10% of TSMC’s capacity later this year, which could mean supplying high-end 3nm chips for Android phones might be limited for a while . This is just speculation, however, TSMC may also increase its capacity, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
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