TSMC is said to have started production on Apple’s new chipsets
The new chipsets will power the company’s 2019 iPhones
Chip maker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) may already have started production of Apple’s new chipsets, which will power this year’s iPhones. According to a report by Bloomberg, the processors went to early test production in April, with mass production slated for this month. The processor will most likely be dubbed the A13 and will power this year’s devices.
A few days ago, TSMC announced that it had started risk production for 5nm chips, which would go into mass production by the first half of 2020. The company also noted that they would start production of 5nm+ chips by 2021. The 5nm process uses a laser with the wavelength of 193nm to project a pattern onto the die through a mask. The new 5nm chips are said to be almost 45% smaller than the current 7nm chips while offering up to 15% performance gains. The 5nm+ process will use Extreme Ultraviolet Laser (EUV Lithography) with a wavelength of just 13.5 nanometers, requiring very few masks as compared to the normal 5nm process. This process is said to improve upon these numbers even further by delivering 6-12% better power efficiency.
So it is pretty evident by that new Apple A13 SoC will not utilise the new 5nm process. However, the 2020 iPhones might. TSMC is the sole supplier of Apple’s chipsets and the new 5nm process might also interest Qualcomm, who used its 7nm for the Snapdragon 855 SoC. Now that TSMC has announced a 5nm process, expect Samsung to follow suit with something similar in order to keep up with the competition.
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