Apple’s 2024 component strategy could see a small change when it launches the iPhone 16 series. A report says that all models launched two years from now will use TSMC’s 3nm chips. For its part, TSMC will have various plans for 3nm processes in the future, with the lower-priced iPhone 16 models likely to use the first generation of 3nm chips in 2024.
The Economic Times accessed a report from Morgan Stanley that talks about TSMC’s 3nm scaling plans. Unfortunately, the chip wafer maker is said to be reducing its tip node production capacity from 80,000 wafers per month to 60,000. Even so, that’s a huge amount of production, much of which will be used by Apple for its 2024 iPhone chips.
This follows reports that the tech giant will switch to TSMC’s 3nm chips for all iPhones in 2024, and here’s where most readers of this report are likely to be confused.
That’s because TSMC has a concentration of different kinds of 3nm processes for customers like Apple, with each iteration better than the one before it. Assuming the company’s plans to launch four new iPhones are not affected, the lower-priced iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus could use first-generation 3nm process mass-produced SoCs, while the “Pro” series could jump to the more power-efficient second-generation process.
Apple is rumored to use TSMC’s second-generation 3nm process to mass-produce the M3 and A17 Bionic, both of which are expected to launch next year, but it’s possible Apple will keep the new A18 Bionic manufacturing process until 2024. Of course, it all depends on whether TSMC can continue to produce enough wafers per month without running into production hurdles, as customers like Qualcomm and MediaTek also want to use the technology for their own mobile chips.
