Reports that next year’s iPhone 17 will adopt TSMC’s next-generation 2nm process are “fake news,” a reliable source for accurate predictions about Apple‘s plans claimed on Monday.
/article-new/2024/04/apple-silicon-feature-joeblue.jpg "Next Year's iPhone 17 Unlikely to Feature TSMC's First 2nm Chip")
According to a post by Weibo user “Phone Chip Expert,” the 2nm process won’t enter mass production until late 2025. The account holder, who claims to have 25 years of experience in the IC industry, including work on Intel’s Pentium processors, suggests the iPhone 17 will still use TSMC’s 3nm process.
“The 2nm process won’t be mass produced until late 2025, so the iPhone 17 definitely won’t be able to catch up,” reads a machine translation of Phone Chip Expert’s post. “It won’t be until the iPhone 18 that a 2nm processor will be used.”
“Anyone who has seen the capacity planning chart will know that this is yet another report from an unscrupulous media outlet,” the user added, commenting on a Zhitong Finance article that repeated claims recently made by Taiwanese newspapers based on “industry sources.”
TSMC plans to begin mass production of 2nm chips next year, but several reports from Taiwan suggested the company had been speeding up the process ahead of schedule to ensure stable performance for mass production. Apple is TSMC’s biggest customer and is typically the first to get new TSMC chips. Apple has purchased all of TSMC’s 3nm chips in 2023 for iPhones, iPads and Macs, for example.
The 2nm manufacturing process, also known simply as “N2,” is expected to offer a 10 to 15 percent speed improvement at the same power or a 25 to 30 percent power reduction at the same speed compared to chips made on the supplier’s 3nm technology. The A17 Pro chip in Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro models is manufactured on TSMC’s first-generation 3nm process, known as N3B. Apple’s M4 chip, which recently debuted in the new iPad Pro, uses an improved version of this 3nm technology.
iOS 18 code has confirmed that all four iPhone 16 models will use Apple’s next-generation A18 chip, based on TSMC’s N3E process. N3E is TSMC’s second-generation 3nm chip manufacturing process, which is less expensive and has improved performance compared to TSMC’s first-generation 3nm process.
The Weibo user who debunks claims that the iPhone 17 will be ready for 2nm chips has a history of making accurate predictions. Phone Chip Expert was the first to reveal that the iPhone 7 would be water resistant and that standard iPhone 14 models would still use the A15 Bionic chip, while the more advanced A16 chip would be exclusive to the iPhone 14 Pro models. These predictions were later confirmed by multiple credible sources and were proven to be correct when the products were launched.
More recently, Phone Chip Expert was the first source of information on Apple’s development of its own AI server processor using TSMC’s 3nm process, with an eye toward mass production in the second half of 2025.
Keynote USA News
For Latest Apple News. Follow © Keynote USA News on Twitter Or Google News.
