Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo pointed out tweeted today that TSMC’s public roadmap for silicon processes indicates that its 3nm and 4nm fabs will not be available for mass production until 2023.
This is another sign that the A16 chip that comes with the iPhone 14 will continue to use the 5nm process. This is on top of the fact that we believe only the more expensive iPhone 14 models will have the A16 chip inside; base models will continue to use the A15 chip.
This statement was previously made by ShrimpApplePro on Twitter.
Sticking to the same level of manufacturing tends to limit the potential gains in performance and energy efficiency for that generation. However, the A15 chip still delivers a reasonable performance and efficiency boost of around 10% over the A14 chip and also uses the same 5nm node.
Kuo was pretty pessimistic about Apple’s roadmap for chip upgrades in general. He also said that the new next-generation MacBook Air, which will be announced this fall, will continue to use the same M1 chip as the current model. The faster and indeed more advanced M2 chip may not arrive until next year.
Of course, Apple could only make minor changes to the current chip and use a different name like M2 to sell the juice for marketing purposes.
It’s not typical for an iPhone chip to use the same process size for three consecutive years. Apple chips have tended to be at the forefront of process node transitions, which was one of the key ways they were able to stay ahead of the competition when it came to performance. However, it looks like TSMC — Apple’s silicon chip manufacturing partner — is failing to push the technological frontier this year, perhaps due to ongoing chip shortages.
It is also unlikely that any other smartphone factories will also be able to offer sub-5nm production this year.
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