Apple chipmaking partner TSMC has announced that it will begin 2nm chip production by 2025. Nikkei Asia reports that TSMC made this announcement at an in-person event, making it the first time the iPhone chipmaker has specifically pinned down a schedule for its 2nm chip production.
The Taiwanese chip titan said its 2nm tech will be based on “nanosheet transistor architecture” to deliver significant improvements in performance and power efficiency. Nanosheet architecture is a completely different infrastructure from the Finfet infrastructure used for 5nm chips, currently the most advanced on the market. Such new tech requires massive investments to make available.
Earlier this year, it was reported that TSMC says it will be prepared to move its 3nm chip process to volume production in the second half of this year. The company should be on track to supply the next-generation technology to Apple in 2023.
Apple’s recently-announced M2 chip for the Mac is based on the A15 Bionic chip and uses the same 5-nanometer design.
TSMC’s continuing advancements are important for it as a company, as Intel has pledged to regain chip manufacturing tech leadership by 2025. The company first disclosed its 1.8nm technology — what it calls 18A technology — in mid-2021. This year, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said this tech is “six months ahead of schedule” and pushed ahead the timetable to the end of 2024.
Samsung said in April that it will produce 3nm chips by the end of June this year.
Creating smaller chips is very challenging because TSMC needs to squeeze more transistors onto the tiny processor.