Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizen South China Wu Yanzu for the clue delivery! CTOnews.com February 21 news, supply chain news said, although TSMC in the first half of 2023 overall capacity utilization rate significantly declined, but the higher contract price of 3 nm (N3) process is indeed as TSMC said, the number of customers, shipments and yield are better than expected.

According to Digitimes, Apple has already occupied 100% of TSMC's current N3 capacity for the upcoming A17 and M3 chips, while Qualcomm and MediaTek are queuing up behind. In addition, TSMC's more power-saving N3E process is about to go into production.

TSMC announced last year that it will start mass production of 3nm chips at its new Fab 18 factory in Tainan Science Park, which is expected to be used for mass production of A17 Bionic and M3 chips (name unknown).

Not surprisingly, the new A17 Bionic chip will be dedicated to the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max / Ultra models, while the M3 will be dedicated to the new MacBook models that will be available in the fourth quarter of this year.

Qualcomm and MediaTek are said to be second in priority to Apple, but the report does not say whether they will use the same N3 technology to mass produce Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 or Tianji's new flagship platform, but we think the possibility is very small, after all, if these new platforms use N3, I am afraid it will be difficult to guarantee capacity supply after the end of the year.

According to CTOnews.com's known data, TSMC's N3E node is more mainstream than N3 and should also be applicable to large customers including Apple, Qualcomm and MediaTek, while N3E will further expand the N3 series to improve performance, power and yield.

TSMC said that compared with 5nm, the logic density of 3nm nodes will increase by 1.6 times and 1.7 times, but the cost will also increase significantly. Compared to the N5, the N3 can provide up to 15% performance improvement and up to 30% energy efficiency improvement, while the N3E will further expand the advantage in energy consumption, and now I only hope that this year's iPhone 15 Pro series will not increase too much.

Extended reading: "Bad news: TSMC N3E node stops SRAM scaling, cell size is larger than N3"

"TSMC's second generation of 3nm technology arrives, N3E chips have been taped"

"Skip N3, News Says Apple Is Considering Using TSMC N3E to Build Next Generation Chips"

"TSMC 3nm offer 20,000 US dollars, Apple iPhone 15 Pro will pass on the cost to consumers"

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.