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3nm Apple Silicon: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?
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I’m really looking forward to the battery efficiency improvements in these new 3 nm chips:
iPhone 15 Pro's A17 Bionic Chip Could Be 35% More Energy Efficient, Enabling Longer Battery Life
The A17 Bionic chip for next year's high-end models of the iPhone 15 lineup could be 35% more efficient compared to current iPhone processors...www.macrumors.com
Hmm but doesn't that depend on the efficiency out-stripping the energy requirements of all the new bells and whistles?
I really doubt it's going to be noticeable.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Old 27-inch "starting at..." price X3 for the (profit) win. 💰💰💰
With the launch of ASD- which is the 27" minus the computer, keyboard and mouse- successfully sold for the old "starting at..." iMac 27" (whole computer) price, there is no way iMac 27" comes back at that relative "bargain" price. I wonder how much of the longing for this product is driven by recalling the price?
Prepare to be shocked when it is revived. Or recall the old iMac Pro launch for a sneak peak now.
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Eject some battery and pitch "same great battery life" = reduced cost (for Apple) for "same great price" and thus more profit. 💰💰
OR, raise prices spun as due to "inflation" or "supply chain" or "covid" or "other" for even more profit. 💰💰💰💰
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We won’t. It’s all AR/VR focus instead of Apple focusing on existing products that get more and more buggy.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
But in an Apple-driven Alternate Reality where one can't see the bugs... (the old tree falling in a forest comes to mind) 
They need to start making chips top down instead of bottom up. Intel next gen will have flagship i9 first instead of low end mobiles. And I will be upset if the MacBook Air gets M3 before either the Studio gets M2/M3 or we see a Mac Pro. That would just be ridiculous if Air gets updated again.I think Apple will introduce a new family of SOCs at WWDC based on 3nm, for whatever product, MacPro or the headset.
performance-wise, sure, there will be a gain but for most people that won't matter in real life, efficiency, yep, better battery life will matter.
meanwhile, as predicted by @Realityck we will see new Macs announced next week - beat you to it Gurman
From Wikipedia: “However, this [feature size in nanometers] has not been the case since 1994, and the number of nanometers used to name process nodes (see the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors) has become more of a marketing term that has no relation with actual feature sizes or transistor density (number of transistors per square millimeter).”
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_device_fabrication#Technology_node]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_device_fabrication#Technology_node]
"3nm" seems to be some marketing BS, as you can read on Wikipedia:
The term "3 nanometer" has no relation to any actual physical feature (such as gate length, metal pitch or gate pitch) of the transistors. According to the projections contained in the 2021 update of the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems published by IEEE Standards Association Industry Connection, a 3 nm node is expected to have a contacted gate pitch of 48 nanometers and a tightest metal pitch of 24 nanometers.[14] However, in real world commercial practice, "3 nm" is used primarily as a marketing term by individual microchip manufacturers to refer to a new, improved generation of silicon semiconductor chips in terms of increased transistor density (i.e. a higher degree of miniaturization), increased speed and reduced power consumption.[15][16] Moreover, there is no industry-wide agreement among different manufacturers about what numbers would define a 3 nm node.
That sounds like the "1 inch sensor", which has a much smaller diagonal than 1 inch.
The term "3 nanometer" has no relation to any actual physical feature (such as gate length, metal pitch or gate pitch) of the transistors. According to the projections contained in the 2021 update of the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems published by IEEE Standards Association Industry Connection, a 3 nm node is expected to have a contacted gate pitch of 48 nanometers and a tightest metal pitch of 24 nanometers.[14] However, in real world commercial practice, "3 nm" is used primarily as a marketing term by individual microchip manufacturers to refer to a new, improved generation of silicon semiconductor chips in terms of increased transistor density (i.e. a higher degree of miniaturization), increased speed and reduced power consumption.[15][16] Moreover, there is no industry-wide agreement among different manufacturers about what numbers would define a 3 nm node.
That sounds like the "1 inch sensor", which has a much smaller diagonal than 1 inch.
The M3 Max Macbook Pro will be the last computer I ever buy..
Doing my part to convince all of my friends to wait out for the M3 Macs. It would be a shame to be this close to a major leap and settle for a last-gen technology.
It's meaningless to take advantage from node when Apple Silicon's GPU performance is extremely poor as M1,2 cant even close and beat RTX 30 series which is not even TSMC 5nm based. What a shame. Power by watt is not everything and Apple doesn't understand that.
Are they opening a new plant in Australia for that?
Well in 2020 they moved to the 5nm, so of course the above statement is true.
And no wonder TSMC is at capacity M3 Production, when those shiny new M3 devices arrive, anything M2 will be yesterdays news.
Whatever the terms used it seems that TSMC is the only manufacturer that’s making advancements I reducing their node size, so much so that Intel is throwing in the towel and ordering 3nm from TSMC.
Intel seems to be struggling to go below 7nm (no matter what Intel names it).
Intel Will Rely on TSMC for its Rebound - EE Times
Intel will join Apple to order the world’s first 3-nm chips from TSMC as the Taiwan chip foundry ramps up its newest process this year.
Intel Reportedly Delays TSMC 3nm Orders for 15th Gen Arrow Lake CPUs
Intel is slightly adjusting its Arrow Lake rollout as it looks to cut costs and navigate weakened demand.
By the way, Apple is the only company that will have a 3nm processor (A17 & M3) in 2023.
Starting to get old @TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️ ask me how old feels at 72 LOL I bet you are much younger than that
😃🙃🙃😉😉Chips getting faster for cheaper, once AI creates its own self-improving chip its over for us fellas
That was back in 2016 ..... It is 2023 .
Apple is reportedly looking at moving Mac Pro to Vietnam.
"... The 2023 Mac Pro looks likely to be one of the products assembled there, which would mean Apple dropping the “Made in USA” tag used for the 2019 model. ... "
Apple manufacturing in Vietnam expanding, likely to include 2023 Mac Pro
Apple manufacturing in Vietnam is set to expand, as the Cupertino company continues working on reducing its dependence on China....
9to5mac.com
Which gets it out of China (and somewhat reduces the "put it in Austin" chants. ) . Also gets away from 'redundant' factories for a relatively very low rate of production device. Austin never did all of the production for the 2019 model. It was a secondary assembly site for significant parts made elsewhere. It was mainly 'optics' which spun up a second, smaller assembly line, in Austin. Apple didn't plan on doing it then. Probably even less inclined now.
If the Mac Pro keeps it approximate $6K price and looses DIMM RAM , 3rd party GPUs , and socketed bare processor, I doubt they need two factories to cover world wide production. It won't be zero demand , but not going to be several 100's of thousands per year run rate either.
Macbooks seem to be moving also ( and/or on a separate effort ) .
Foxconn to Begin Making MacBooks in Vietnam as Early as May 2023
Apple plans to begin producing MacBook models in Vietnam for the first time next year, according to a new report from Nikkei Asia. Citing sources...
www.macrumors.com
Chip technology continues to amaze me. I started doing chip design in the 1980s with a 4 micron process, and I retired more than 30 years later working in a 10 nanometer process. It's just too cool.
Happy for the pro's who will make use of the raw power. I doubt the 80% of facebook machine users will notice a thing.