In the middle of this month, AMD CEO Lisa Su went to Taiwan to publicly demonstrate a silicon wafer with 2-nm chips that were manufactured by TSMC but will be used in the fifth-generation EPYC processors. Intel will not make such statements for a number of reasons, but it is already receiving samples of 2-nm chips from TSMC.
Image Source: Intel
In any case, this is what the sources quoted by Economic Daily News are convinced of. TSMC has already started producing trial batches of 2-nm components for Intel’s needs at its facility in Hsinchu, as the sources explain. The American manufacturer intends to establish production of a wide range of products using Intel’s own 18A technology, but this does not mean that cooperation with TSMC should be abandoned. The latter has been actively supplying Intel with semiconductor components for mass consumer-class processors of this brand for a couple of years now. In general, Intel considers it quite rational to receive 25 to 30% of its products from contractors, because this makes economic sense.
Representatives of Intel and TSMC predictably declined to comment on this news to Economic Daily News. At the same time, TSMC’s deliveries of Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake processor components for Intel are not a secret, but they are manufactured using more mature 3 to 6 nm process technologies. TSMC plans to begin mass deliveries of 2 nm products to its customers in the second half of this year. According to available information, all key customers have already begun receiving samples of their 2 nm products from TSMC. As expected, in the case of Intel, we are talking about 2 nm crystals for Nova Lake processors, which will be released next year.
Apple will also use TSMC’s 2nm A20 processors in the iPhone 18 family of smartphones, which will be released next fall. Historically, Apple has been TSMC’s biggest customer for each new process technology, being among the first to receive the corresponding products, but it does not publicly comment on such interactions until the corresponding smartphones are released, which has allowed AMD to steal the spotlight recently.