Citing foreign technology media Lifewire reports, Apple chip partners TSMC in the United States, the new plant in Arizona recently held the first machine into the factory ceremony, Apple CEO Tim Cook personally present to help, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger tweeted congratulations. But this does not mean that Apple is going to produce the iPhone in the United States, and even the output of the chip will not be applied to the iPhone.
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Tim Cook and President Joe Biden visited TSMC’s new plant in Arizona, which will produce chips for Apple, but not the M-series and A-series chips for the Mac and iPhone.
The facility was completed earlier this year and production is scheduled to start in 2024. The current Phase 1 project has cost $12 billion, but it’s also not advanced enough to make Apple’s processors.
Industry analyst Ben Thompson wrote on his Stratechery blog: “In simple terms, even if TSMC’s new plant can start mass production in 2024, it is still two years behind 4-nanometer process production. And if The factory plans to produce a 5-nanometer process, it will actually be 4 years behind.”
Apple Silicon is far ahead of the competition with its incredible power and low power consumption. It depends on several factors, two of which are design (Apple’s chips are optimized to run only Apple software, which makes the design more powerful and efficient) and chip craftsmanship.
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The information currently released by TSMC’s new plant in Arizona shows that it will use a 5nm or 4nm process, which sounds very good, but by 2024 Apple’s M-series and A-series will have to be upgraded to a 3nm process.
That said, TSMC’s Arizona plant won’t be making iPhone chips, at least for now. It could make other chips for Apple’s devices instead, or it could make older A-series chips. Under Tim Cook, Apple has tended to sell older devices for years to keep manufacturing costs down. Additionally, Apple uses older A-series chips in everything from the Studio Display to the Apple TV.
