Announcement
Both TSMC and Samsung Foundry will begin mass production of chips with 3nm nodes this year. Both use different types of transistors, as TSMC still uses FinFET transistors with horizontal “lamellas” that improve transistor performance and reduce leakage. Samsung GAA transistors have better current control and less leakage thanks to the horizontally stacked nanosheets. TSMC is joining Samsung in using GAA transistors in its 2nm chips, which are expected to enter mass production by 2025.
The lower the bandwidth of the technological node, the greater the number of transistors on a chip. And the more transistors in a microcircuit, the more powerful and energy efficient it is. Therefore, in principle, it can be expected that chip designers around the world will want to start shipping chips fabricated using 3nm nodes. But according to DigiTimes and MacRumors, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Apple, which plans to launch its own A-series and M-series chips, could be the only major tech company to use 3nm chips in its devices this year.
According to the report, Qualcomm and MediaTek may not be willing to pay more than $20,000 per wafer for 3nm production of their chips aimed at Android devices as device sales seem highly uncertain this year.
Both chip designers have a tough decision to make. On the one hand, they don’t want to fall behind the powerful 3nm A17 Bionic processor that will power the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Ultra. On the other hand, they don’t want to overpay for 3nm chips when they can get away with 4nm technology. The report notes that Qualcomm may be forced to spend on 3nm chips if Samsung continues to compete with Apple in the premium flagship market.
Given that the Galaxy S23 series will be powered by an overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip manufactured by Samsung Foundry using a 4nm process, any move to 3nm seems unexpectedly unexpected.
In addition to Apple using the 3nm process for the A17 Bionic, it is expected to be used for the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips as well. These parts are expected to be used in the updated 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
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