Apple's newest iPhones began arriving on doorsteps across the country on Friday morning and are equipped with chips manufactured using TSMC's second-generation 3nm process. Apple is reportedly Looking to jump to TSMC 2nm for next year's phones, but since TSMC likely won't start 2nm production until the end of the year, one respected analyst now says Apple will be forced to use 3nm chips once again in 2025 before moving to 2nm in 2026.
The iPhone 16 family of phones They all use a chip called A18that TSMC makes. Both chips are made on a second-generation 3nm process and appear to be identical, save for a scrapped version used in non-Pro phones. The process Apple is most likely using for the iPhone 16 is TSMC N3E, and according According to renowned analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the iPhone 17 lineup is expected to switch to N3P in 2025. Looking ahead to 2026, Apple will again be the first in line for TSMC’s 2nm chips. But due to their high cost, Kuo claims that only the Pro phones will have 2nm chips in 2026.
TSMC is expected to begin 2nm production in 2025, but not early enough in the year to have chips ready for Apple by September.
Credit: TSMC
While this is speculation, the timelines make sense. TSMC has placed 2nm in 2025 on its roadmap, but that could mean any time of the year. As you may recall, it had placed 3nm in “2022” and then He announced it on December 29thjust before New Year's. We didn't see those chips coming to the iPhone until September 2023, so we can expect a similar (or longer) timeframe for Apple to have 2nm chips for the iPhone.
The time from announcement to having millions of chips ready for Apple could be longer for 2nm than for 3nm because the transition will be a A big step forward for TSMC. For its N2 process, TSMC will move away from FinFETs to move for the first time to gate-in-all-direction (GAA) nanosheet transistors, so growing pains are expected despite its engineering pedigree. It was also previously reported that TSMC 2nm production may have to be delayed until 2026 due to a variety of factors, but we'll find out if that's true next year.
