Apple Chipmaker Discusses Highly Advanced 1.4nm Chips for First Time

TSMC has officially mentioned its work on 1.4nm fabrication technology that is likely destined to underpin future Apple silicon chips.

apple silicon 1 feature
In a slide (via SemiAnalysis's Dylan Patel) from its Future of Logic panel, TSMC disclosed the official name of its 1.4nm node for the first time, "A14." The company's 1.4nm technology is expected to follow its "N2" 2nm chips.

N2 is scheduled for mass production in late 2025, to be followed by an enhanced "N2P" node in late 2026. As a result, it is unlikely that any A14 chips will arrive before 2027.

Apple was the first company to utilize TSMC's 3nm technology with the A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, and the company is likely to follow suit with the chipmaker's upcoming nodes. Apple's latest chip technology has historically appeared in the iPhone before making its way to the iPad and Mac lineups. With all of the latest information, here's how the iPhone's chip technology could look going forward:

  • iPhone XR and XS (2018): A12 Bionic (7nm, N7)
  • iPhone 11 lineup (2019): A13 Bionic (7nm, N7P)
  • iPhone 12 lineup (2020): A14 Bionic (5nm, N5)
  • iPhone 13 Pro (2021): A15 Bionic (5nm, N5P)
  • iPhone 14 Pro (2022): A16 Bionic (4nm, N4P)
  • iPhone 15 Pro (2023): A17 Pro (3nm, N3B)
  • iPhone 16 Pro (2024): "A18" (3nm, N3E)
  • "iPhone 17 Pro" (2025): "A19" (2nm, N2)
  • "iPhone 18 Pro" (2026): "A20" (2nm, N2P)
  • "iPhone 19 Pro" (2027): "A21" (1.4nm, A14)

The M1 series of Apple silicon chips is based on the A14 Bionic and uses TSMC's N5 node, while the M2 and M3 series use N5P and N3B, respectively. The Apple Watch's S4 and S5 chips use N7, the S6, S7, and S8 chips use N7P, and the latest S9 chip uses N4P.

Each successive TSMC node surpasses its predecessor in terms of transistor density, performance, and efficiency. Earlier this week, it emerged that TSMC had already demonstrated prototype 2nm chips to Apple ahead of their expected introduction in 2025.

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Top Rated Comments

Infodataset Avatar
18 months ago
Introducing our 1.4 nm chip M6 With 8 gb of ram?
Score: 51 Votes (Like | Disagree)
darngooddesign Avatar
18 months ago
Introducing the M6 MacBook Pro with the M6-Pro, using the 1.4nm in the A14, but not that A14.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
coffeemilktea Avatar
18 months ago
I can't wait to see a 1.4nm chip in the 2027 MacBook Air and iMac!

...paired with 8 GB of RAM and 256 of storage. Starting at [S]$1300[/S] $1299. ?
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tenthousandthings Avatar
18 months ago
Apple's "A18" will be on N3P, not N3E, but otherwise the predicted iPhone sequence is as good a guess as we can make.

On TSMC's naming, just to be clear, the "A" stands for angstrom (10 angstrom = 1 nanometer) and should technically be an Å -- in the age of Unicode, there's no reason why TSMC can't simply use Å instead of A, but I suppose the marketing people objected to that. But we can hope that, when it's all official and not just a tech-conference slide for people who all know that A = Å, maybe TSMC will use Å instead of A...
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
darngooddesign Avatar
18 months ago

I can't wait to see a 1.4nm chip in the 2027 MacBook Air and iMac!

...paired with 8 GB of RAM and 256 of storage. Starting at [S]$1300[/S] $1299. ?
No way, by 2027 12GB will be the base RAM. LOL
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ShiftHappens Avatar
18 months ago
Oh no! My 2nm MBP that I was planning to buy in 2025 is already obsolete!
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)