Wired
Apple’s A-series and M1 chip maker TSMC is planning to conduct risky production of so-called 3-nanometer chips later this year. The future iPhone will use a 3-nanometer process, but it is likely to wait until 2023.
Risk production refers to the stage where the fab has conducted pure internal testing and believes that it is now ready to try the process on customer designs to see if these designs can be successfully produced.
A Digitimes report stated that TSMC is expected to achieve mass production in the second half of 2022.
Apple’s A15 chip in the 2021 iPhone will stick to the 5-nanometer process, but will shift to the enhanced “5nm+” TSMC will call 5nm+ N5P and describe it as a performance-enhanced version, which will combine with a larger Power and higher power efficiency to improve battery life.
Models in 2022 will switch to 4nm technology, but with shortcuts.
The A16 chip is expected to use the so-called 5nm+ version of the process shrink version, or die shrink version. This is not so much a brand new chip process, as it is a way to reduce the size of the existing chip design without making any major changes. This allows more chips to be obtained per wafer, thereby reducing manufacturing costs.
However, this size reduction still provides performance advantages, because smaller chips generate less heat and can therefore run at full speed for longer periods of time before thermal throttling is required.