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According to a new report, Apple's chip manufacturing partner TSMC has started producing processors based on the 3nm process (N3).
The Taiwanese news site DigiTimes reported citing industry sources, that TSMC will move the process into mass production by the fourth quarter of 2022 and begin shipping 3nm chips to customers like Apple and Intel in the first quarter of 2023. As usual, this process advancement should enable significant improvements in performance and power efficiency, which may lead to faster speeds and/or longer battery life in future iPhones and Macs. The first batch of Apple Silicon Macs with M1 chips already deliver industry-leading performance per watt while running impressively quiet and cool.
First Apple devices with “M3” chips are expected to appear in 2023
The first Apple devices with 3nm chips are expected to launch in 2023, including iPhone 15 models with an A17 chip and Apple Silicon Macs with M3 chips. Wayne Ma of The Information reported last month that some of the M3 chips will have up to four "dies," which the report suggests could mean these chips have a CPU with up to 40 cores, compared to the M1 chips with 8 cores and the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips with 10 cores. Meanwhile, the Macs with M2 chips and the iPhone 14 models are expected to use chips based on TSMC's N4 process, which is another iteration of the 5nm process. (Photo by ZinetroN / Bigstockphoto)
