Apple Supplier TSMC to Produce 3nm Chips at Arizona Plant

Apple chip supplier TSMC has plans in place to mass produce next-generation 3-nanometer chips at its $12 billion Arizona facility, according to the Taiwanese company’s founder.

Speaking to reporters on Monday in Taipei, Morris Chang said the 3-nanometre plant would be located at the same Arizona site as the 5-nanometre plant.

“Three-nanometre, TSMC right now has a plan, but it has not been completely finalized,” Chang, who has retired from TSMC but remains influential in the company, told Reuters. “It has almost been finalized – in the same Arizona site, phase two. Five-nanometre is phase one, 3-nanometre is phase two.”

Apple is rumored to be moving its custom silicon to the 3nm process starting with the M2 Pro or M3 chip. Both Apple’s ‌M3‌ chip for Macs and A17 chip for iPhone 15 Pro models are expected to be manufactured based on TSMC’s enhanced 3nm process. Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman has said he expects the ‌M2‌ Pro to be used in updates next year to the 14-inch MacBook Pro and 16-inch MacBook Pro, as well as a high-end Mac mini.

The move to a more advanced process typically results in improved performance and power efficiency, enabling faster speeds and longer battery life on future Macs and iPhones. According to TSMC, 3nm technology, also known as N3, will offer up to 70% logic density gain, up to 15% speed improvement at the same power, and up to 30% power reduction at the same speed when compared to its predecessor. The company says it is targeting volume production in the second half of this year.