TSMC To Start 3nm Chips For Apple This Week

TSMC is apparently about to start manufacturing chips with a structural width of just three nanometers. According to a report from Asia, the start of commercial 3nm production will be celebrated this week.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest chip contract manufacturer and Apple’s main supplier plans to start the… commercial production of chips with a structure width of just three nanometers.

Gigantic plant in southern Taiwan

An event will be held at the new “Fab 18” in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in the southern city of Tainan to officially celebrate the start of production. The same date will also be used to release more information on plans to expand 3nm manufacturing at the facility.

However, it will still be a while before TSMC really delivers processors with a structure width of three nanometers on a really large scale. The so-called N3 node makes the start. Apple has allegedly already been won as the first customer, although the US computer company probably wants to use the new chips in the iPhone 15 and other devices from its production.

It is only expected from 2024 that various other customers will also buy the new chips from TSMC, in which further developed variants of the 3nm production technology will then be used. The number of units should then increase significantly again.

Nevertheless, Apple is likely to be the first customer to buy a considerable number of units, even if the share of 3nm chips in TSMC revenue from wafer production in 2023 will probably be quite low at only four to six percent. From 2025, 3nm chips in different variants will probably be ubiquitous when it comes to TSMC.