TSMC to manufacture the “Apple Silicon” for future Macs

Last month, Apple announced that it was moving away from Intel, deciding to go it alone and design homemade custom ARM processors for their future Macs. 

While Apple has some of the world’s best CPU design teams, the company cannot handle manufacturing on its own. Apple’s a silicon designer, not a fabricator, so they will need a 3rd party to create their custom processors. That’s where TSMC steps in. 

According to a report from DigiTimes, Apple’s planning to ramp up it’s manufacturing with TSMC, taking on a lot more chip orders from the foundry in the second half of 2021. With TSMC being forced to part ways with Huawei following US sanctions, TSMC has freed up enough manufacturing capacity to offer Apple the wafer allocations that they desire. What remains to be seen is what process node Apple will use for its custom Mac processors. Will Apple opt for 5nm, or create their initial designs on 7nm? 

With this move, Apple will likely remain as TSMC’s largest customer for some time. DigiTimes has also stated that Apple plans to use ASMedia USB controllers for its ARM-based Macs. While Apple may utilise Samsung’s fabs to create some of their future Mac processors in the future, TSMC is undoubtedly the top competitor within the foundry market today, a fact which will be critical for Apple given their desire to impress its customers with their early Apple Silicon products.