Apple to jump queue for TSMC's industry-first 2-nanometer chips: Report

Apple will be the first electronic manufacturer to receive chips built by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) on a two-nanometer process. According to Korea’s DigiTimes Asia, inside sources said that Apple is "widely believed to be the initial client to utilise the process." The report noted that TSMC has been increasing the production capacity in response to “significant customer orders”. Moreover, the report added, that the company has recently established a production expansion strategy aimed at producing 2nm chipsets based on Gate-all-around (GAA) manufacturing process.

The GAA process, also known as gate-all-around field-effect transistor (GAA-FET) technology, defies the performance limitations of other chip manufacturing processes by allowing the transistors to carry more current while staying relatively small in size.

According to the report, TSMC is building two new facilities in its home country to accommodate 2nm chip production using the GAA process, and is expected to receive approval for the third facility. The company is expected to begin the production of new chipsets in the second half of 2025. Prior to its 2nm chips, TSMC is reportedly planning to introduce several new improvements to its 3nm chipsets. The company has already announced N3E and N3P chips that are based on enhanced ‌3nm fabrication processes while there are other chips such as N3X currently under work.

For the uninitiated, the term nanometer refers to the size of an individual transistor within a processor. Smaller the size, more tightly the transistors can be packed together on a chip, freeing up space to add more transistors. Increase in the number of transistors not only improves the processing performance of the chip but also its power efficiency.

Last year, Apple introduced its A17 Pro chip for the iPhone 15 Pro models and M3 series chips for the new Macs, both of which were built on 3nm architecture.