The Apple A16 Bionic has completed its design, and TSMC will mass-produce it in the second half of this year

Apple will launch the iPhone 14 series this year, which will be equipped with the A16 Bionic. Recently, netizens @Shadow_Leak said that Apple has completed the work of the A16 Bionic design phase. Normally, in a few months, the A16 Bionic will be in mass production.

In addition, Apple has accepted TSMC's price increase and has contracted TSMC's 120,000 to 150,000 pieces of 4nm production capacity to ensure the supply of A16 Bionic. It is understood that TSMC will start mass production at the Fab 18 fab in the second half of this year. Last year, the A15 Bionic began mass production in May, and the A16 Bionic should not be too different. Due to the continued chip shortage and rising costs, TSMC has raised prices on a large scale in the past period of time, coupled with the use of more advanced manufacturing processes, the cost will be even higher.

TSMC's N4 process is optimized based on the existing N5 process and can provide more PPA (power, performance, area) advantages, but maintain the same design rules, design infrastructure, SPICE simulation program and IP. By further expanding the range of EUV lithography tooling equipment on the N4 process, it is also possible to reduce the number of masks, process steps, risks and costs.

This time, the A16 Bionic is likely to use TSMC's N4P process, as the third major improvement of the N5 process node, the performance is 11% higher than the earliest N5 process, and it is also 6% higher than the original N4 process. Compared to the N5 process, there is also a 22% increase in energy efficiency and a 6% increase in transistor density.