Representatives from foundry TSMC said that the next-generation 3nm mobile processor node will soon be put into mass production, but according to Digitimes, its enhanced N3E version will not appear in the phone chip until Apple launches the iPhone 15 Pro model.
According to TSMC’s CEO during the Q2 earnings call, “N3E will further expand our N3 family with improved performance, power and yield. We are observing high customer engagement with N3E, with volume production planned for about a year after N3, or around this time next year.”
Qualcomm’s next-generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip apparently won’t be able to use the 3nm process and will still be manufactured on a 4nm process, with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip expected to use the 3nm process for a large number of Android flagship phones in 2024.
MediaTek, the world’s largest mobile chipset maker, is also expected to release only TSMC 3nm processors by the end of 2023, so only Apple, a major customer for TSMC’s “enhanced” 3nm mobile chipset production node, may eventually be used in the A17 processor.
Apple iPhone 15 Pro specifications are expected to be as follows.
- 3nm A17 processor
- 48-megapixel primary camera
- 12-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera with 1.4-micron pixels
- Perforated OLED display
- 6x periscope zoom camera
There are rumors that Apple will be using processor differentiation on the iPhone 14 series — iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max with 5nm process A15, and iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max with 4nm chips A16 — next year’s result could be only iPhone 15 Pro Max and iPhone 15 Pro with a 3nm process A17 chip.
As a result, according to TSMC’s N3E production schedule, industry sources say that Apple will be “a major customer for TSMC’s 3nm process manufacturing in 2023, and the foundry is expected to fill significant 3nm chip orders for multiple customers in 2024.
As a result, the first major phones to use TSMC’s new 3nm chips are expected to be the Apple iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, which will feature a new periscope camera.
