As a privileged customer of TSMC, Apple benefits in advance from the technical advances of the Taiwanese founder.
The iPhone 17 with 2nm processors in preview££££
Thus in 2020, the iPhone 12s were the first smartphones to benefit from the 5nm engraving process for their processors, the same for the following models with the latest iPhone 15 Pro equipped with processors engraved in 3 nanometers. At the end of last year, we reported that Apple had already been able to test the future 2nm models which will equip the iPhone 17 Pro planned for 2025. Information recently corroborated by the Taiwanese media Digitimes which specifies that Apple will indeed be the first company to take advantage of this technology, announced for the second half of 2025.
Apple wants exclusivity on 1.4nm and 1nm engravings from £2027£££
TSMC is currently building two new factories for the production of these chips, and is seeking to build a third. We also learn that the 1.4 nm process will be ready in 2027 and that Apple is already seeking to reserve exclusivity for production, the same for the future 1 nanometer process. As a reminder, in the world of processors, the smaller the engraving process, the more powerful the chip, less energy intensive and less subject to heat. Indeed, the smaller the size of an engraving, the smaller the space between the transistors, so more transistors can be placed on the same surface.