Intel and Apple may be the first to use TSMC's 2nm node

Technological advancement is unstoppable, and while the problem inherent in semiconductor shortages is improving (although there are still potential dangers from the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine), the tech giants are thinking about the chips of the future, which will be made on further refined process nodes. It appears that well-known Taiwan Semiconductor Manufactoring Corp. (known primarily as TSMC) will begin manufacturing high-volume chips on its brand new 2nm process node in late 2025, with deliveries expected in early 2026.



credit: unsplash.com Traditionally, one of the companies that aims to exploit the cutting-edge technologies of TSMC is Apple, mainly due to the need to make millions of iPhones every year, not to mention that the transition to Apple Silicon has further raised the demand bar. However, according to articles published by DigiTimes and UDN, Intel will also soon become a major customer of the foundry and will be one of the first to use the 2N node alongside Apple.


Let's clarify TSMC's N2 expansion program in Fab 20 (Hsinchu). The relocation of the tools is expected to begin by the end of 2022, according to the company's plans, before production at the end of 2024 with Intel (for Lunar Lake 'tile' GPUs, while the 'tile' CPUs are manufactured using Intel 18A) and Apple, which are the reference customers for dedicated capacity.



Photo Credit: Intel Among the other major companies in the sector we find AMD, NVIDIA, Broadcom and MediaTek, which have currently confirmed that they will use various TSMC N5 family nodes, such as N5, N5P, N4, N4P and N4X, to build their chips. Specifically, NVIDIA will use the custom process known as N4X for the Hopper and possibly Ada Lovelace GPUs, while the Mediatek Dimensity 8000/8100 and Dimensity 9000 SoCs will use N5 and N4, respectively. As confirmed by Digitmes, these companies are working to secure capacity for even more advanced nodes, such as N3 and N2, for the next few years.