Wired
TSMC announced two years ago to build the world’s first 3nm wafer fab in the Southern Science Park in Taiwan Province. Now, the manufacturer has begun building its next-generation plant on its recently acquired 30-hectare site, preparing for large-scale production of 3nm wafers, and the estimated cost of construction projects and equipment is $19.5 billion.
The fab is expected to be up and running, and 3nm parts will be mass produced by the end of 2022 or early 2023.
Although many processor chips for PCs and smart devices are currently being manufactured in a 7nm process at TSMC’s facilities, the company is rapidly preparing to put its 5nm node into mass production in the first half of 2020. Production generation, R & D generation, according to this planning cycle, 5nm process chip launched about two years later, 3nm process into mass production, very in line with the law.
CC Wei, vice chairman and CEO of TSMC, said in a conference call with investors after the second quarter of 2019 in the second quarter of this year that 3nm node development is progressing smoothly.
This will undoubtedly have a major impact on the future development of the Apple A series processor. Apple’s chip design has led the industry for many years. Since 2007, it has been developing ARM-based processors and is working harder on the A4 and A6 chips to push it to the peak in 2016 with the A10 chip.
As we all know, each iteration after A10 achieved significant performance and power efficiency improvements, becoming the leader in mobile chips:
· The A10 Fusion processor in iPhone 7 in 2016 was the first SoC designed by Apple. It improves processor performance by 40% and graphics performance by 50% compared to the replaced 64-bit A9 chip (for iPhone 6S).
· When Apple switched from 14nm A10 to 7nm A11, performance increased by 25%.
· The Apple A12 processor continues to deliver outstanding performance improvements over the A11 family of chips, while the existing 7nm A13 family of processors maintains this trend, achieving 20% performance improvement and 40% compared to the 2018 A12. % power efficiency improvement.
There is no doubt that Apple will switch to the 5nm process in 2020, and next year’s A14 processor is likely to use the 5nm process to ensure continuous performance and power efficiency.
At the same time, this is also the need for Apple to start applying 5G solutions by 2020.
The road map is not over yet. The TSMC 3nm wafer plant started construction, which is a huge investment – close to US$20 billion. It is expected to start mass production in late 2022 or early 2023.
As one of TSMC’s largest customers, Apple inevitably considers future applications of the 3nm process.
We only need to review Apple’s chip development history to know that it is 100% committed to developing and distributing the world’s most advanced processors, and is committed to continuous improvement of these architectures. Not only that, but Apple’s long-term struggle with imitations in design has not been very effective. In the process, it has learned in a difficult way to use internal hardware to achieve patented technology that opponents cannot legally copy.
In the future, Apple will continue to move along a clear roadmap. It is foreseeable that the A-series processors will surpass some of the desktop processors in terms of performance. For the platform unified plan that the company has not given up, will the evolution of future processors be available? Helping to better integrate both iOS and macOS, it will take time to prove.