TSMC leads the race to mass-produce chips at 2nm process node

A fierce competition is taking place in the semiconductor field as cutting-edge foundries begin mass-producing chips using 2nm process nodes in 2025. This coincides with the third year of 3nm mass production. The first smartphones equipped with 3nm chips are Apple's iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, both of which are equipped with A17 Pro application processing (AP) built on TSMC's first-generation 3nm node (N3B). TSMC's second-generation 3nm node (N3E) is used to manufacture the A18 and A18 Pro APs used in the iPhone 16 series. Although there were earlier rumors that TSMC would use its 2nm node to manufacture the A19 series APs, next year's iPhone 17 series chips will be manufactured using TSMC's third-generation 3nm process (N3P). Apple may want to wait until the 2026 iPhone 18 series to use the 2nm node to manufacture its A20 and A20 Pro APs to save money. The price of silicon wafers used to manufacture chips using a new process node is usually higher in the first year of use of the node. TSMC, the world's largest wafer foundry, has already filled the "party cards" on 2nm. In addition to its largest customer Apple, which has signed all 2nm production capacity through 2026, TSMC's customers such as HPC (high-performance computing) manufacturers, artificial intelligence (AI), chip manufacturers, and mobile chip manufacturers are also involved. This puts TSMC ahead of Intel and Samsung foundries in 2nm orders. In addition to Apple, other well-known companies that have expressed their desire to buy TSMC's 2nm production capacity include AMD, Nvidia, MediaTek, and Qualcomm.