The iPhone has been mass-produced by TSMC's 3nm process, which has boosted transistor density by about 70%

The iPhone has been mass-produced by TSMC's 3nm process, which has boosted transistor density by about 70%

Samsung finished mass production of the 3nm GAA process in early July, and the first chips will be delivered on July 25. Although Samsung beat TSMC to mass produce the 3nm process, it did not receive many orders. Big customers such as Apple, AMD, Nvidia and Qualcomm have their eyes on TSMC's 3nm process.

According to Taiwan media reports, TSMC's 3nm process has already started mass production, and the mass production will be carried out simultaneously in Hsinchu and Nanke campuses. TSMC did not confirm the news. Since TSMC failed to mass-produce the 3nm process in the first half of this year, Apple's A16 chip will have to use 4nm process. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is also out for now. Another reason why the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 won't be available at TSMC's 3nm is that Apple's M2 Pro and M2 MAX chips will take up most of the production capacity.

TSMC's 3nm is a bit later than Samsung's, but technically it is more mature. As previously revealed, TSMC's 3nm node will have at least five generations of derivative processes, namely N3, N3P, N3S, N3X and N3E, with N3 being the first to be mass-produced.

Although it is the earliest mass-produced product, the improvement brought by the iteration of the process level is still obvious. According to the official data, the power consumption can be reduced by 25-30%, the performance can be increased by 10-15%, and the transistor density can be increased by about 70%.