Next year's iPhone and Mac devices could feature chips manufactured using the 3nm process.
Apple's chip supplier TSMC is reportedly planning to start mass production of 3nm chips for Apple in the second half of 2022. This is now claimed by DigiTimes in a report.
TSMC is on track to bring its 3nm process technology into mass production for Apple's devices, either iPhones or Mac computers, in the second half of 2022.
In early June, it was reported that TSMC was increasing its capacity to produce 3nm chips. But DigiTimes did not mention at the time that Apple was a potential first beneficiary of the new process.
iPhone & Mac: Smaller chip architecture offers better performance and higher energy efficiency
If DigiTimes is right, it would mean that Apple is planning to jump straight to 3nm as early as next year, just two years after unveiling chips based on the 5nm process. Other reports say that Apple has already booked all of TSMC's production capacity for 4nm chips for Apple Silicon Macs. However, this report does not provide a timeline for when and if Mac devices with 4nm chips might actually appear. The A14 Bionic chip, which was first used in an updated iPad Air and later in the iPhone 12 series, is based on the 5nm process. Compared to previous processes, the smaller architecture offers better performance and greater energy efficiency. For this year's iPhone, Apple will use an improved version of the 5nm process - the A15 chip. (Photo by Unsplash / Vựa Táo)
