Apple secures 80 percent of TSMC's 5 nm production capacity for the coming year
Although TSMC has already fired up its 3 nm production facility and is expected to implement GAAFET transistors on 2 nm nodes before the end of 2023, the main focus of the company now is the 5 nm technology. The gains of this process can easily be spotted in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 and the Apple A14 Bionic processors, and demand for 5 nm chips can only rise in the coming year. Luckily for Apple, they managed to secure most of TSMC's 5 nm production capacity for 2021.
A recent report that comes from anonymous Taiwanese sources reveals that the Cupertino-based tech giant has managed to get a hold of no less than 80 percent of TSMC's 5 nm output for next year. The remaining 20 percent go to quite a few clients, such as Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Broadcom, as well as other less relevant brands.
The aforementioned sources also revealed that TSMC will push the lever to the maximum in the first quarter of 2021 when the production lines will hit a capacity of around 9,000 5 nm wafers per month. The list of 5 nm processors that Apple should release in 2021 includes the A14Z Bionic for next-gen iPad Pro tablets, the A14T Bionic for the redesigned iMac, as well as the A15 Bionic that is expected to power the upcoming iPhone 13 lineup.
As usual, we should take all the above with a grain of salt for now, because Apple has not confirmed anything yet.
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