TSMC's 5-nanometer process may start with Apple 'A14' in early 2020
Apple could shift the 2020 A-series processor to a 5-nanometer production process, comments from TSMC CFO Lora Ho suggests, with a shift to mass production of the processor architecture node tipped to commence in the first half of 2020, spurred on by 5G smartphone demands.
An example of a wafer used in chip production (via Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.)
Apple's iPhone and other smartphones are expected to be the main driver of growth for TSMC's third quarter alongside Internet of Things devices, CFO Lora Ho advised, in explaining the anticipated increase in demand in the second half of 2019, as revealed by the company on Thursday. The fourth quarter will be even stronger, furthered by higher smartphone chip demand.
The growing demand for 5G smartphones and base station equipment will be a main driver for component demand for the rest of the year, Ho told DigiTimes, with the company using its advanced and mature process nodes for chip production in those fields for the moment.
The demand is sufficiently strong that the company's capital expenditure will outpace a previous estimation of $10 billion to $11 billion, with increased spending planned for both current-generation 7-nanometer process and newer 5-nanometer nodes.
CEO C.C. Wei told investors on Thursday TSMC has become "a little bit more aggressive" on its 5-nanometer production ramp up, with the producer on track to go to volume production of 5-nanometer chips by the first half of 2020. Wei suggested the growth of 5G demand will spur on a need for greater 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer production.
The development of a 5-nanometer process node would offer benefits to TSMC clients that opt for it, including Apple. This can include shrinking the physical space of the die, reducing the cost-per-chip of wafers and the ultimate cost of the processor, improved performance, and lower power consumption.
For Apple, the current-generation A12 Bionic is made using a 7-nanometer process, while the "A13" expected in this fall's iPhone refresh is tipped to stay at that tier. TSMC has already provided its design infrastructure for creating 5-nanometer process chips to clients, and since Apple is a major customer of the chip foundry, it is likely to be among the first to take advantage of the technology when it is ready for production, possibly in the "A14" chip.
An example of a wafer used in chip production (via Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.)
Apple's iPhone and other smartphones are expected to be the main driver of growth for TSMC's third quarter alongside Internet of Things devices, CFO Lora Ho advised, in explaining the anticipated increase in demand in the second half of 2019, as revealed by the company on Thursday. The fourth quarter will be even stronger, furthered by higher smartphone chip demand.
The growing demand for 5G smartphones and base station equipment will be a main driver for component demand for the rest of the year, Ho told DigiTimes, with the company using its advanced and mature process nodes for chip production in those fields for the moment.
The demand is sufficiently strong that the company's capital expenditure will outpace a previous estimation of $10 billion to $11 billion, with increased spending planned for both current-generation 7-nanometer process and newer 5-nanometer nodes.
CEO C.C. Wei told investors on Thursday TSMC has become "a little bit more aggressive" on its 5-nanometer production ramp up, with the producer on track to go to volume production of 5-nanometer chips by the first half of 2020. Wei suggested the growth of 5G demand will spur on a need for greater 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer production.
The development of a 5-nanometer process node would offer benefits to TSMC clients that opt for it, including Apple. This can include shrinking the physical space of the die, reducing the cost-per-chip of wafers and the ultimate cost of the processor, improved performance, and lower power consumption.
For Apple, the current-generation A12 Bionic is made using a 7-nanometer process, while the "A13" expected in this fall's iPhone refresh is tipped to stay at that tier. TSMC has already provided its design infrastructure for creating 5-nanometer process chips to clients, and since Apple is a major customer of the chip foundry, it is likely to be among the first to take advantage of the technology when it is ready for production, possibly in the "A14" chip.
Comments
I realize 5-nanometer isn’t really 5-nanometer and is more marketing, but still the shrinking continues.
We’re getting real close to the physical limits, then things get interesting.
My “interesting” expectation is 2025, or 2 generations away.
They're not directly comparable, of course. Only certain features can be 5nm, while others must be larger. Still, the 80186 (also from 1982) was 55k transistors with a 3µm feature size. That yields 600x linear improvement and 360,000x area improvement. Even considering some features need to be larger than 5nm, you could definitely fit an entire 80186 core into each transistor of an original 80186.
If 2020 iphone lineup has OLED, 5nm, Qualcomm 5G along with the usual camera & AI upgrades it will be a knock-out combination, but I can't wait another 14 months! Apple - PLEASE surprise us all by breaking with tradition and announcing the 2020 iPhones in first half of 2020!
Users don’t care about the process used to make the chips.
Apple has been great at getting max performance from one core, which is what iOS (mobile OSs) needs. So, how do you scale up? Do you have 2 large fast (GHz) core operating 2 open apps, and a bunch of slower cores dedicated to specific OS functions and accessory applications? How do you allocate resources when you have 10 apps open? Does Adobe just get elevated in priority and take a fast core? What happens when you open an even more resource intensive app?
My bet is more things get offloaded to the graphics processor, just like the T2 chip offloads storage and authentication.
Fortunately, Apple can optimize the @#$& out of the OS. Do they scale up IPadOS or create an entirely new OS for laptops that can run desktop class software... Whatever it is I bet small software developers are going to squeal, with the advantage going to goliaths like Microsoft and Adobe.
https://m.phys.org/news/2019-07-molecular-single-molecule.html
Yeah, just like we’re going back to the moon any day now but the date keeps getting pushed back. Where’s the SLS and Orion crew module? Still in testing, testing, one two three, testing.