Secret meeting between Apple and TSMC reported, possibly to reserve all 2nm capacity

A new report says that there was a “secret meeting” between Apple chief operating officer Jeff Williams and the company’s exclusive chipmaker TSMC.

It’s being speculated that the meeting may have been to agree a deal for Apple to reserve all of TSMC’s 2nm capacity, in the same way it reportedly did with 3nm tech …

Background

TSMC has long been Apple’s exclusive chipmaker for A-series and M-series processors because the Taiwanese company has a significant global lead in ever smaller processes.

Apple reportedly booked 100% of TSMC’s 3nm chipmaking capacity for the A17 Pro chip used in the iPhone 15 Pro models, the M3 chips used in the latest Macs, and the M4 chip used in the new iPad Pro.

That deal ensured that Apple would have sufficient capacity to keep up with demand for its own products, while also locking out rivals who might aim to try to catch up with its own processors.

Secret meeting may have been about 2nm exclusivity

Market intelligence company TrendForce cites a local report of Apple COO Jeff Williams visiting Taiwan to meet with TSMC’s president.

Williams recently made a visit to TSMC, and was personally received by TSMC’s President, C.C. Wei, according a report by Economic Daily News.

The low-profile visit was made to secure TSMC’s advanced manufacturing capacity, potentially 2nm process, booked for Apple’s in-house AI-chips, according to the report.

9to5Mac’s Take

It would make perfect sense for Apple to again seek exclusivity on TSMC’s latest processes.

In addition to the chips needed for consumer products, Apple is believed to be developing a new “AI chip” for data center servers as part of the iOS 18 launch later this year. This is expected to help power a much more powerful version of Siri, boosted by ChatGPT tech provided through a deal with OpenAI.

While Apple is aiming to be able to run its own LLM on-device, it’s likely that this would have limited capabilities, and that remote processing power would be needed for the full set of AI features expected to be announced next month.

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