The founder of Apple chip supplier TSMC says the Taiwanese company plans to produce its next-generation chips at its $12 billion Arizona fabricating facility.
Morris Chang told reporters on Monday in Taipei that the 3-nanometer plant would be located at the same Arizona site as the 5-nanometre plant.
“Three-nanometre, TSMC right now has a plan, but it has not been completely finalized,” Chang, who has retired from TSMC but remains influential in the company, told Reuters. “It has almost been finalized – in the same Arizona site, phase two. Five-nanometre is phase one, 3-nanometre is phase two.”
Apple is expected to first use the 3nm process to fabricate its upcoming M2 Pro or M3 chip. Both Apple’s M3 chip for Macs and A17 chip for iPhone 15 Pro models are expected to be manufactured based on TSMC’s enhanced 3nm process.
Apple’s move to a more advanced is expected to result in improved performance and power efficiency, enabling faster speeds and longer battery life on future Macs and iPhones. TSMC says its 3nm technology, also known as N3, N3 technology will offer up to 70% logic density gain, up to 15% speed improvement at the same power, and up to 30% power reduction at the same speed as compared with N5 technology.
The company says N3 technology development is on track “with good progress,” and that volume production is targeted for the second half of 2022.
