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Apple Orders Entire Supply of TSMC's 3nm Chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

klasma said:
You mean, until the software stops supporting it. We already could be using computer hardware much longer if not for lack of software support.
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My 2015 MBP doesn’t run the current macOS, but everything still works great.

I’m assuming you mean things like Office going EOL at some point?
 
Confused-User said:
This news *still* doesn't tell us what's coming next, but it does confirm what I wrote here a few weeks ago. We know Apple is taking all of TSMC's supply of N3, and it's likely (but NOT certain) that it won't go into the next iphone, as that's more likely to be N3E, going into commercial production later this year. So if that's true, what will N3 be for? Most likely the Mac Pro, a new iMac (possibly labelled "pro", possibly not), and/or the MacBook Air. Also, possibly, new Macbook Pro 14-16", but that seems less likely until the fall. Oh, and the Apple AR/VR product, possibly.

In this scenario, we would likely see the Mac Pro in the next three months, and by WWDC at the latest.

BTW, I had a long talk with one of Apple's silicon designers just a few days ago. He's currently working on one of the cores for the M4. Unfortunately, he was smart enough not to tell me anything interesting. :-(
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Thanks for sharing all of your insights and notably informed speculations -- valuable contributions to the discussion.

I have to say though it seems unlikely that an Apple engineer would be at liberty to share any meaningful specifics ('I'm working on the M4') regarding work at the company. I could see Apple employees discussing general industry trends, but not current company projects.
 
xmach said:
Thanks for sharing all of your insights and notably informed speculations -- valuable contributions to the discussion.

I have to say though it seems unlikely that an Apple engineer would be at liberty to share any meaningful specifics ('I'm working on the M4') regarding work at the company. I could see Apple employees discussing general industry trends, but not current company projects.
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Yes, I was surprised by that myself when he just came out and said it! However, he said nothing else at all. I guess the name isn't subject to secrecy the way all the details are. After all it's obvious there will be an M3 and M4, and it's also obvious nobody in design is working on the M3 now (that's all done).
 
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NT1440 said:
My 2015 MBP doesn’t run the current macOS, but everything still works great.

I’m assuming you mean things like Office going EOL at some point?
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no, I assume @klasma was referring to the lack of OS support for older devices. There are plenty of older Macs and iPhones out there that are perfectly functional and have sufficient computing resources to accomplish the basic tasks that most people need -- light web browsing, email, video streaming, etc. But because of terminated macOS and iOS support these devices have security issues that are unacceptable for many.

Microsoft does something similar. It's an unfortunate industry-wide trend meant to stimulate spending on new devices.
 
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IIGS User said:
Well, the Borg gotta start somewhere…..

ASSIMILATE THIS!
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The Borg got defeated with the fall of the Power Mac G4 in the battle of Waznok and Jalobs at Tanagra.

Apple_Power_Mac_G4_Cube_-_Side_Shot.jpg
 
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Confused-User said:
Yes, I was surprised by that myself when he just came out and said it! However, he said nothing else at all. I guess the name isn't subject to secrecy the way all the details are. After all it's obvious there will be an M3 and M4, and it's also obvious nobody in design is working on the M3 now (that's all done).
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I agree about your statements of what's obvious -- that work on the next generation of chips (M3) is either completely or nearly done, and that work is underway on the generations (M4, etc.) after that. But Apple's corporate culture is one of maximal secrecy. Everyone 'knows' with 99.9% confidence that the next iPhone will be named 'iPhone 15', and we have a pretty good idea of what its technical specifications will be. But Apple will refuse to acknowledge either the name of the product nor its substance until the hour it's announced.

For this reason I'm very surprised that your acquaintance said "I'm working on M4" instead of something more generic like "I'm working on future SoC technology." From our perspective this is a mostly meaningless distinction, but at least theoretically he could get in some trouble if a manager learned of his divulgence of an upcoming product name (even if we all know it's coming), got upset, and wanted to make life difficult for him.
 
Confused-User said:
You're mistaken. The A16 fiasco was purely down to TSMC being unable to deliver N3 on time, forcing Apple to deliver a mostly warmed-over A15 with bumped-up clocks. All of the advances we would have gotten in A16 had that not been the case will appear this year in the A17, along with further improvements. It's going to be a monster.

Expect the same for the M3, for the same exact reasons.
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I certainly hope you're right because A16 and M2 both feel a bit stopgap-ish to me.
 
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NT1440 said:
My 2015 MBP doesn’t run the current macOS, but everything still works great.

I’m assuming you mean things like Office going EOL at some point?
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There are a lot of ways in which this is the case. Newer versions of apps requiring newer OS versions. Newer OS versions requiring newer hardware. External services requiring newer versions of apps or of the OS. Apps requiring more RAM than available on older hardware. Apps becoming too slow on older hardware. Apps not supporting the smaller sreen sizes of older hardware. As soon as there is interaction with external services (which includes the web), the hardware lives on borrowed time once software stops supporting it. Older iPhones and iPads are good examples, whose hardware still runs perfectly fine. I don’t see this changing, hardware will continue being obsoleted by software by default, and only rarely by the actual hardware failing.
 
Confused-User said:
Since Apple absorbed all the costs of going to N5 and N4, *and* ate all the costs of inflation over the last couple of years (at least in the US), their track record really doesn't warrant that sort of question. However, given inflation's continued pace, sooner or later they may well decide to raise prices. I suspect that they don't want to break the psychological $1k barrier for the pro, but we'll see.
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I do remember reading an article stating TMSC raised waifer costs by ~25% for their initial 3nm process (i.e. no competition essentially), so was quite a hike. Also TMSC said they could not increase cache density going from refined 5nm to initial 3nm which was a big deal although not given much visibility.

Definitely put the nail in the coffin of any idea of reverting to a shared SOC for all same ver iPhones (on the 14 the 4nm process (although really refined 5nm from TMSC) SOC capacity was lower than full iPhone 14 production so the split was required but not cost wise). Now TMSC has made the cost of a regular iPhone 15 using its 3nm process undo-able...at least this year...presumably never to happen again.
 
Freida said:
As it should be. What you see is what you pay. Never understood why NA is lagging behind on this. Drives me nuts
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Being able to see what government‘s cut of the transaction is not “lagging behind”. Each state/county sets its own tax structure. This allows the consumer to make better purchasing decisions with most consumables. With a 15 minute drive I can save 1% on most purchases. You prefer to have your taxes hidden from you?
 
xmach said:
no, I assume @klasma was referring to the lack of OS support for older devices. There are plenty of older Macs and iPhones out there that are perfectly functional and have sufficient computing resources to accomplish the basic tasks that most people need -- light web browsing, email, video streaming, etc. But because of terminated macOS and iOS support these devices have security issues that are unacceptable for many.

Microsoft does something similar. It's an unfortunate industry-wide trend meant to stimulate spending on new devices.
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Didn’t we just see security releases for iOS 12?
 
It's not such a huge jump from 5nm. What is going to be interesting is Intel's Arrow and Meteor Lake at 3nm and 5nm. They still sell 14nm stuff with gen. 11. I would imagine once they catch up it this will be better all around.

Good thing Apple dumped them.
 
Confused-User said:
N3E is not a generation after N3 (aka N3B). It's an offshoot of N3, and the same generation.

N3E is generally superior to N3. It is better in both efficiency and performance, though only by a little bit. But it is inferior in two important ways. The first is area - it has slightly relaxed rules, meaning that features are a bit larger. So depending on what you're building, it's a wash, or N3E is a bit better than N3. (If you were building pure SRAM, N3 would be slightly better, maybe, but who does that? Well, AMD, a little bit. It's a corner case.)

But.

The other advantage N3 has is that it's already in volume production. That means the first finished wafers are due soon, within the next month or so. If you want N3E, well, you can't have it yet! So if you want, say, an M3 Mac before the fall, you only have one choice. The iphone, on the other hand, might be a good target for N3E. (Or, maybe not. It depends on how many wafers TSMC can make, and how quickly, when they do ramp up N3E.)

BTW, your source is a good one. Anandtech's articles on this are pretty reliable. The numbers in their table provide specifics for what I wrote above.
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I just wanted to say props to you, for actually understanding what is going on and what the various technologies and specs mean. I frankly get frustrated reading all the posts with inaccurate info in these forums. I agree with just about everything you have been saying.

I believe the rumor to be reasonable and probably true that apple has purchased all or most of the N3(N3B) production and any new chip released this year will likely be made on that node. N3E will likely not go into high volume production for at least another 6 months if not close to the end of the year if there are any setbacks. So I do not see any new products being released by apple this year based on the N3E process.

But I wanted to add a couple more points:

As you had said, N3E is more relaxed than N3B, this also includes that they have reduced the number of EUV layers from 25 down to 19. This reduced complexity is one of the reasons that yields should also be higher on N3E and as a result the prices(eventually) will be lower despite the slightly lower density.

Also a big advantage that N3E has over N3B is that they introduced FinFlex, this allows for extreme customization/optimization of power and performance by adjusting the number of NMOS and PMOS fins on a cell. With a FinFlex 3-2 implementation it offers 12% lower power iso-performance, 32% higher performance iso-power, and 15% lower area compared to N5(which uses a 2-2 fin design). So compared to N3B an N3E implementation can in part or whole trade some of the power and density improvements to more than double the performance improvements over N5.
 
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I've said it a million times before…buy up that TSMC stock while ya can! ;-) (lol, was just commenting on Uber Live Activities before this and almost said "Uber stock"—yeah, stay away from that)

[disclaimer: personal opinion, not actual financial advice, I am not Warren Buffet lmao]
 
I prefer to see what I will pay. The whole europe runs on it and its the most simple method. NA is a mess and you often have to guess as some items have different taxes so you never really know the final price.

Also, 15 minute drive will probably burn the 1% saving in gas not to mention the time wasted.




Razorpit said:
Being able to see what government‘s cut of the transaction is not “lagging behind”. Each state/county sets its own tax structure. This allows the consumer to make better purchasing decisions with most consumables. With a 15 minute drive I can save 1% on most purchases. You prefer to have your taxes hidden from you?
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anthogag said:
3 nm chips FTW

After nano comes pico, pico de metre
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The industry has already decided that the next node shrink name is going to Ångströms. People seem really confused on this point. There are measurements smaller than nanometer so no we are never going to get to 0 nm. That's silly. The industry is likely to switch over at 1.5 nm and start using 15 Å.
 
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Bonte said:
I was hoping that Apple would enter the server market with the M-chips but it seems the volume just isn't available to make this happen yet.
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Or Apple's margin requirement gets in the way of getting much of a foothold in that space?

Apple did not quit that space for any reason other than buyer demand: if there were enough buyers wanting to purchase (and pay up for) servers from Apple, they would still be in that business.

Why wouldn't server buyers demand Apple? Because other server options offered just as much power for considerably less cost. How can they do that? Part of how is by not demanding such huge margin. Is that different now? No.
 
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