While talking about how the next mobile processor production node investments will dilute their earnings by a few percentage points in the next quarter, TSMC tangentially confirmed that 5nm chipsets are in our very near phone future. Now, where would those new processors go?

The Apple iPhone 12’s A14 will be the fastest and most power-efficient mobile processor

According to the fabrication plans, TSMC’s 5nm technology is about 15% faster but uses a full 30% lower power than the current 7nm node that is in the Snapdragon 865+ or Apple A13, the current mobile champs.

Why would Apple need that much more power, given that the A13 is already the fastest mobile chipset out there? Well, it may allow it to finally start fulfilling its AR/VR and other imaging dreams. 

TSMC isn’t stopping here, though, but is preparing to introduce 3nm en masse in 2022 which will be a totally new node generation compared to the current 5nm and 7nm nodes, and will be staying with us for the foreseeable future, while processor architects add more features rather than fight on speed and clock frequencies.