Apple's chip supplier, TSMC, is on track to deliver next-gen 2nm chip next year, BusinessKorea.
See also: Apple plans to use its M2 Ultra AI chip in the cloud
Apple is expected to move its custom chip to the 2nm process next year to take advantage of TSMC's advancements. TSMC is said to be moving forward confidently with the 2nm node. The chipmaker's Vice President of Process Development, Zhang Xiaogang, announced that "the development of 2nm technology is progressing smoothly" and mass production is on track for 2025.
Some rumors suggested that TSMC may be forced to delay full mass production of its 2nm Next-Gen Chip technology for Apple until 2026 due to technical challenges related to the first implementation of Gate-All-Around (GAA). These rumors were dispelled by Zhang, who confirmed that “the performance during the implementation of GAA has reached 90 percent of the target,” indicating significant progress. Jeff Williams, Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, recently made a discreet visit to Taiwan to meet with TSMC Chairman Wei Zhejia and secure the supply of Next-Gen 2nm Chips.
See also: Will the new iPad Pro really have the M4 Chip?
The iPhone 15 Pro is powered by the A17 Pro chip, which is built on 3nm . This process allows more transistors to be packed into a smaller space, delivering improvements in efficiency and performance. Apple's M4 chip, which just debuted in the new iPad Pro, uses an improved version of this 3nm technology. The move to Next-Gen 2nm chips will bring further improvements, with expected performance gains of 10 to 15 percent and power consumption reductions of up to 30 percent compared to the 3nm process.
TSMC remains the only company that can make 2nm and 3nm chips at the scale and quality that Apple requires. For its 3nm chips, Apple has committed all of TSMC's available chipmaking capacity, and the chipmaker plans to triple its production capacity for the node by the end of the year to meet growing demand. The 2nm chips could first appear in the iPhone 17 in 2025.
See also: Apple M4 chip MacBook Air 2025 – What to expect?
A few words about Apple Silicon
Apple Silicon introduces the ARM architecture, which offers higher energy efficiency compared to the x86. This means that devices can operate for longer periods without requiring frequent charging, while maintaining high performance. The integration of the Neural Engine into Apple Silicon allows machine learning tasks to be performed with greater speed and efficiency. This is critical for applications that require image recognition, natural language processing, and other artificial intelligence functions. Apple Silicon features a unified memory architecture, which allows all processor subsystems to have direct access to the same memory. This reduces latency and increases data processing speed.
Source: macrumors
