Reports say that Apple is expected to adopt TSMC’s 3nm process for the iPhone 15’s A17 Bionic. However, the talks don’t seem to be going well. Apple tried to reject TSMC’s 6% price increase, but it doesn’t seem to have a choice, so the A17 Bionic must be one of the most expensive chips ever built into an iPhone and this should impact the final price of the device.
As pointed out by DigiTimes, TSMC’s 5nm chip wafers cost US$16,000 each and the 3nm ones are expected to sell for US$20,000 due to global inflation. This factor, together with raw material supply problems in recent years, caused component prices to rise sharply during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Also, it’s worth remembering that Apple paid twice the price of the A15 Bionic for the A16 for the change from 5nm to 4nm lithography. Digging a little further, DigiTimes claims that each unit of the A16 Bionic costs Apple $110, so it is estimated that each unit of the A17 Bionic costs around $150.
Comparing the values, it is possible to say that the iPhone 15 Pro should cost more than US$ 999 due to this increase in chip prices. In this way, Apple must bet on other differentials to motivate its customers to acquire the new model, such as more RAM, USB-C port superior to other models and more.
