Disappointed? No. Surprised? Refer to our first answer. With TSMC putting another factory in Arizona, the 3nm system may be more expensive to make
Chip manufacturing has now formally entered the 3 nanometer era. The manufacturing of semiconductors that use this technique has begun at companies like Samsung and TSMC. It appears that TSMC will begin supplying Apple with 3nm CPUs for the iPhone 15 series.
Despite the fact that this condition is favorable in terms of performance and energy efficiency, its cost-related effects have already started. Wafer costs at TSMC double from 7nm to 3nm manufacture.
The world’s top chip foundry, TSMC, will use a cutting-edge process node to manufacture the A17 Bionic chip that Apple created for the iPhone 15 series.
Simply defined, a chip is more powerful and energy-efficient the lower the process node number, the smaller the transistors utilized in a chip, allowing more transistors inside a chip. Every year, as a result of this process, more sophisticated processors appear.
For instance, the 7nm A13 Bionic SoC, debuted in 2019, contained 8.5 billion transistors in each chip in the iPhone 11, and the A16 Bionic chipset was found within the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. Unfortunately, it is becoming more difficult every year to maintain the progress we have already made.
Beginning in 2025, 2nm devices are planned from TSMC and Samsung, and it’s even likely that 1nm processors may be available by 2030. Despite the many benefits of these breakthroughs, there are expenses involved.
The most recent reports state that TSMC intends to charge more than $20,000 for 3nm wafers. The foundry’s wafer pricing increased by 60% from $10,000 per wafer to $16,000 per wafer when it switched from 7nm to 5nm.
Although the end user may not first see the value of these charges, price increases are unavoidable. This suggests that the price of the iPhone 15 and other flagship models will be more than anticipated. especially in light of the fact that wafer prices are not the only thing going up.
