According to Bloomberg’s latest report, the Taiwanese TSMC has begun mass production of new A12 chips running on 7nm technology.
The Taiwanese company TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) announced in April that it is starting to produce 7-nanometer chips. Currently, we still did not know for whom they were doing, but Apple is one of the potential customers. If the information from Apple prophet, Mark Gurman is correct (and usually they are), the new iPhone models will be the first devices on the market with this technology.
It’s not that important to be the first because the competitors will follow them in the footsteps and soon all will have those 7-nanometer chips. However, this change could be significant in terms of processor performance, which could increase by 40%.
Nodes are made in a process called CLN7FF, which is based on DUV (Deep Ultraviolet) lithography. The biggest advantage is that this process is compatible with existing equipment, but due to multiple samples, design and production is taking more time. CLN7FF + is something more advanced, and it’s about EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) lithography. It will be available from mid-2019, so it will not affect this year’s iPhone.
Thanks to CLN7FF, TSMC will be able to deliver the first larger series in the second half of 2018. Since the next generation of iPhone will arrive at about the same time, there is a great chance that Apple’s devices will be the first devices on the market to have 7 -Nanometer processors. Their leading position is unlikely to last forever, as Qualcomm is also working hard on it. But it would be really great if this technology will come in this autumn.
This is obviously not the only new technology that could be introduced with the new iPhone models. Apparently, all this year’s models could get Face ID support, TrueDepth camera system, the edge-to-edge screen, and gesture management instead of the Home button.