TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, has announced that it has started production of its next-generation 3-nanometer processor.
As reported by Bloomberg, the company has started mass production of the next-gen chip at its Tainan campus in southern Taiwan, following Samsung into the future of chip design. TSMC Chairman Mark Liu said that “the semiconductor industry will grow rapidly over the next decade, and Taiwan will surely play an even more critical role in the global economy” and added that demand for the 3-nanometer processors was “very strong.”
According to Liu, “mass production of 3-nanometer chips is the fruit of decades-long collaboration with the local supply chain.”
The company’s 3nm process technology is expected to bring significant improvements in performance and power efficiency for a wide range of applications, including mobile devices, high-performance computing, and artificial intelligence. TSMC says that the next-gen chips will “offer better performance than its 5nm chips, while requiring about 35% less power.”
Will 3nm chips be on the iPhone 15?
It’s currently unclear when 3nm technology will make its way into Apple’s A-Series chips for the iPhone. TSMC is planning to open a 4nm plant in Arizona over the next couple of years with a separate 3nm plant opening in 2026. That makes it seem unlikely to come to the iPhone 15 which is due for debut in September 2023.
When the technology does make its way into the iPhone, users can expect another leap in performance but, as TSMC points out, the bigger gain might be in battery life due to the power efficiency realized in the 3nm process.
While more power and battery life are always welcome, the latest iPhones have already featured enough power and battery life to get almost anyone through a full day of use. It seems that the only place to go now is multi-day battery life across non-Max models. I’m sure we’re all fine with that!