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Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

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Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#61

Post by cubefox »

deanc wrote: post #11

> Compared to 5nm process, the first-generation 3nm process can reduce power consumption by up to 45%, improve performance by 23% and reduce area by 16% compared to 5nm, while the second-generation 3nm process is to reduce power consumption by up to 50%, improve performance by 30% and reduce area by 35%. What kind of real-world impact are we likely to see on the 3nm chips for the new iPhone and M3 macs? These figures…

This comparison is somewhat disingenuous. Why would they compare 3nm to 5mm, when the current TSMC process is 4nm, not 5nm? We don't know how (un)impressive the improvements of the 3nm process are, when we don't know how much of the difference between 5nm and 3nm merely comes from the difference between between 5nm and 4nm.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#62

Post by amoss »

jb1991 wrote: post #32
nsteel wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reduce power consumption by up to 50%, improve performance by 30% and reduce area by 35% To be clear, you don't get all three. Also, are these Apple's numbers? They are better than what TSMC say (1st gen) 3nm silicon provides: > N3 technology will offer up to 70% logic density gain, up to 15% speed improvement at the same power and up to 30% power reduction at the same speed as compared with N5 technology https://w…

I’m curious why not? Apple Silicon so far has improved performance, and reduced power consumption. Does that mean that it’s a larger chip than the others that came before it?

There is a trade-off between the three kinds of improvements. It is possible to pick some points (for example) that give a less than maximum power reduction as well as a less than maximum speed improvment. I think the comparison would be the Apple Silicon that they released is larger than a (hypothetical) alternative that only improved performance but kept the other two constant.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#63

Post by kijin »

jojobas wrote: post #12

Why does TSMC do that? When Apple has better options TSMS will be dumped, as with IBM and Intel before. Why hurt goodwill with other customers?

This is not the first time I've heard of TSMC reserving a very large portion of their production capacity for a single customer, especially in the early days of a new process node. I guess there's an inherent risk in being the launch customer for a new node (unexpected delays, low yield, bugs, etc.) that can only be offset by exceptionally large volume.

Maybe there's a gentleman's agreement among Apple, Samsung, AMD and nvidia that somebody's gotta buy those early wafers, but nobody can do that every single time?

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#64

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

jb1991 wrote: post #53
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are Intel getting cutting edge (3nm) chips made by TSMC ? I know they're outsourcing production of some of the older nodes, but that would be a bit surprising. Semiconductor manufacturing is all about scale - selling enough of each generation to fund development of the next generation (which is astronomically expensive). If Intel are buying cutting edge chips from TSMC then that would seem to be an act of desperation…

Here’s more context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34894943

Wow - desperation indeed. It's amazing how Intel, who had such process expertise, managed to screw up like this, while TSMC and Samsung have adapted to new generations without any real hiccups.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#65

Post by flakeoil »

highwaylights wrote: post #46
warrenm wrote: post #9

Why hasn't Apple just bought TSMC?

I expect it would be more likely they’d just go straight to ASML and start building their own fabs. That said, they may see enough value in their TSMC deal that it’s simply not worth what would be an eye-watering outlay for something that in the end may not really save them all that much. It’s probably not seen as a bad thing internally that other rivals aren’t able to get on 3nm either, which wouldn’t be true if App…

> I expect it would be more likely they’d just go straight to ASML and start building their own fabs.

Yeah, right. As if it is that simple. Just construct a building and put ASML machines inside and off you go.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#67

Post by nindalf »

deanc wrote: post #11

> Compared to 5nm process, the first-generation 3nm process can reduce power consumption by up to 45%, improve performance by 23% and reduce area by 16% compared to 5nm, while the second-generation 3nm process is to reduce power consumption by up to 50%, improve performance by 30% and reduce area by 35%. What kind of real-world impact are we likely to see on the 3nm chips for the new iPhone and M3 macs? These figures…

This is power consumption of (some of) the chips alone. That's pretty good, but the power consumption of the screen, cell radio, bluetooth, accelerometer, microphone, GPS - all of these add up to more than the power consumption by the chip. And not all of them, especially not the screen is going to be affected by TSMC's process change.

Obviously there's many caveats here based on how each person uses their device. But the broad takeaway is - a 45% reduction in power consumption by Apple's chips doesn't result in a corresponding increase in battery life. We'll only know when the final product is shipped.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#68

Post by warrenm »

nsteel wrote: post #15
deanc wrote: post #11

> Compared to 5nm process, the first-generation 3nm process can reduce power consumption by up to 45%, improve performance by 23% and reduce area by 16% compared to 5nm, while the second-generation 3nm process is to reduce power consumption by up to 50%, improve performance by 30% and reduce area by 35%. What kind of real-world impact are we likely to see on the 3nm chips for the new iPhone and M3 macs? These figures…

> reduce power consumption by up to 50%, improve performance by 30% and reduce area by 35% To be clear, you don't get all three. Also, are these Apple's numbers? They are better than what TSMC say (1st gen) 3nm silicon provides: > N3 technology will offer up to 70% logic density gain, up to 15% speed improvement at the same power and up to 30% power reduction at the same speed as compared with N5 technology https://w…

"Speed" != "Performance"

'70% logic density gain' sounds like 'reduce area by 35%' to me

The only one that might not line up is 'reduce power consumption by up to 50%' vs 'up to 30% power reduction at the same speed as compared with N5 technology'

...but you have to know what's being compared before deciding the numbers do (or don't) make sense

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#69

Post by manmal »

maven29 wrote: post #49
jb1991 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious why not? Apple Silicon so far has improved performance, and reduced power consumption. Does that mean that it’s a larger chip than the others that came before it?

They got there by skimping on IO

Please elaborate. IO is really not an issue in the M* machines I‘ve used - on the contrary.

Re: Apple orders entire supply of TSMC's 3nm chips for iPhone 15 Pro and M3 Macs

#70

Post by adolph »

helf wrote: post #59
xiphias2 wrote: post #34

M2 was a skip generation for me, looking forward to M3. Maybe the same with iPhone. I generally care about process node as the main feature of a computer.

You care about the process node as a main feature? Really? I mean, it's nice and all, but the MAIN FEATURE?

Most systems have similar IO, OS, runtimes. It makes sense for folks to be primarily concerned with Watts per MIPS.
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