The factory TSCM extension $12 billion under construction in Arizonain 2024, when opening, will produce 4 nanometer process chip. Mark Gurman, a Bloomberg journalist who closely follows the events involving Apple, says that Apple and other companies that work with TSMC such as AMD and Nvidia have pushed for instead of the 5-nanometer chips, 4-nanometer ones were produced from day one.
Nothing official yet. At the moment there are rumors, voices of people informed about the facts, who say that next Tuesday the plans could become public on the occasion of Joe Biden’s visit to Phoenix. However, it is not hard to believe that TSMC’s main partners have pushed to go back to the initial choice. Little is done about 5 nanometer chips: they are not in step with the times (now, let alone in 2024) and they are not even cheap enough to be sold in large numbers to the automotive industry or for those applications in which a chip is needed above all little expensive, more than refined.
In short, the numbers, both in dollars and in terms of units placed, are made at extremes, so 5nm chips in 2024 would be next to useless. Reason why – is the story of Bloomberg’s sources – TSMC would have undertaken to create a second production plant near the first where 3-nanometer chips will be made. Apple alone is expected to absorb about a third of the chips produced in Arizona, so has a big say. The initial forecast was around 20,000 wafers per month, but the feeling is that once operational, the target will be higher.
That’s why Apple is a major sponsor of TSMC’s US facility and why it is speculated that even Tim Cook can be present at Tuesday’s event with Biden. For two years now, that is, since the outbreak of the pandemic, Cupertino has become aware that entrusting an entire range of products, from iPhones to Macs, into the hands of the unpredictable East is not a wise choice for doing business with ease, with enough supplies at key moments. Hence the intention to diversify the origin of the components, seriously looking at the opportunities offered by a strongly developing economy such as the Indian one for example and why not, also to the American lands.
