Recently, the iPhone supply chain said that this year's launch of the iPhone 15 Pro series will lead to a rush to replace existing iPhone users,Because the new model will have the A17 chip.This is the first time Apple has used TSMC's 3-nanometer process to build a new chip, which significantly improves performance and energy efficiency.

At the end of last year, TSMC held a 3-nanometer production and plant expansion ceremony and officially announced the start of 3-nanometer mass production. Samsung had announced the start of production of the 3-nanometer process in June last year, while Taiwan Semiconductor had originally planned to start mass production in September last year, but delayed it to the end of last year due to some reasons.

On the 3-nm process enhancement, TSMC said its research and development results are also better than expected, with better performance, power consumption and yield, providing a complete platform support for smartphones and HPC-related applications in the 3nm eraThe N3E process is also expected to enter mass production in the second half of 2023.It has been confirmed that Apple will be the first customer of TSMC's 3nm process and may debut the process chips in the A17.

At the same time, it is reported that the original customer of TSMC's 3 nano was Intel, but because of the delayed order of Meteor Lake of the Intelic, this move greatly affected TSMC's production expansion plan.As a result, Apple was the only customer for the first wave of 3nm process, and its products included M series chips and A17 chips.As a result, TSMC has decided to slow its expansion to ensure that excess idle capacity does not lead to cost pressures.

The A17 chip, the first to be built using a 3-nanometer process, will also be the first to reap the benefits of manufacturing,TSMC N3E technology will make A17 chip in terms of specifications to achieve a large increase, by this impact, will greatly stimulate the replacement demand of old users.

Initially, however, the process was expensive to manufacture, but Apple still won full orders for TSMC's first-generation 3-nanometer technology, which meant that chipmakers like Qualcomm could not use the technology in the early days.

It is foreseeable that 2023 will be A tough year for the Android camp. The inability to use advanced manufacturing processes may cause Qualcomm's Snapdragon series chips to fall behind the A-Series chips again. Although Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 has already surpassed the A16 in some aspects, this situation may stop with the release of the A17 chip.

The Android camp, in an ideal scenario, would probably use the 3 nm process in Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chips, which is the second half of next year, and thus continue to lag behind. However, previous reports have suggested that the A17 chip won't offer much of a performance boost because Apple is more focused on power efficiency.

In fact, in recent years, Apple's A-series chips have already slowed down the pace of performance upgrades, while continuing to make strength in the field of notebook chips, after the self-developed A-Series chips replaced Samsung chips, Apple once again introduced the stunning performance of the M series chips, A comprehensive replacement for Intel processors. The M Series, based on the ARM architecture, is actually not just a processor, but a system-level chip.

While Apple's two lines of chips were truly impressive in terms of performance, the two-pronged strategy must have been exhausting internally,After A large number of resources tend to M series chip, A series chip performance improvement is not reasonable.What's more, Apple is now developing its own baseband chips, and the demand for talent will be greater. It is still unknown whether the three-front battle will enable Apple to make all-out efforts to bring stronger chips.

Recently, the iPhone supply chain said that this year's launch of the iPhone 15 Pro series will trigger a rush to replace existing iPhone users, as the new models will include the A17 chip