TSMC to start production of 2nm manufacturing process in 2024?

Taiwanese semiconductor company TSMC, which is consigning Apple’s own chips, including the iPhone A14 Bionic, is expected to start production of chips in the 2nm manufacturing process by 2024.

According to reports, TSMC will build a new factory for 2nm chips in Taiwan and start production by 2024. Construction of the plant will begin in early 2022 and production facilities will be installed in 2023.

Hsinchu, where the plant is expected to be built, is a Taiwanese version of Silicon Valley, which is also one of the most important bases for chip manufacturing for TSMC. The plan was approved by Taiwanese regulators the day after Intel, TSMC’s competitor in chip manufacturing, announced a roadmap for consignment production of Qualcomm processors and future manufacturing process node miniaturization.

Rumors or reports that Apple will use the 2nm manufacturing process for their own designed chips have not been confirmed yet. However, in recent years, there is a precedent that Apple has put advanced manufacturing process technology into production by always entrusting TSMC for production such as the M1 chip mounted on the A14 or Mac. Therefore, it can be said that it is almost certain that the 2nm manufacturing process will be adopted for iPhone and Mac processors in the future.

In the semiconductor manufacturing process, the smaller the circuit line width, such as 10nm, 7nm, 5nm, the number of transistors included in a chip of the same size tends to increase and both performance and energy efficiency tend to increase. It is reported that the iPhone 13 series and A15, which will be focused on this year, use N5P, which is an improved 5 nm manufacturing process in the A14 Bionic, and it is known that the chips for the iPad Pro in 2022 will be produced in the 3 nm process.

Meanwhile, TSMC is undergoing rapid global expansion to meet global demand. For example, while building a 5nm chip plant in Arizona, USA, it is expanding a 28nm plant in Nanjing, China, and has announced that it is considering building a new plant in Germany and Japan. However, it is difficult to expect immediate effect from the increase in chip production in terms of production aside from the improvement in performance of this semiconductor manufacturing process development. The semiconductor shortage is expected to last for a while, as Apple has warned of the impact on iPhones and iPads. Related information can be found here.