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A comment on TSMC confirms 3nm tech for 2022, could enable epic 80B transistor GPUs. Parent comment

Re:TSMC confirms 3nm tech for 2022, could enable epic 80B tr... by no_wizard on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @10:47AM (#25277399)
It’s not just the M1 though. I believe they are going to be if they aren’t already using TSMC for all their chips so iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch if I recall correctly. That’s a lot of capacity.

Ultimately they’re in this huge success mode which is great! They just have to be careful Not to overbuild additional supply and end in a situation where demand tempers for some reason and they are now in a glut

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Re:TSMC confirms 3nm tech for 2022, could enable epic 80B tr... by ajross on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @01:36PM (#25279678)
To first approximation, it's not the M1 at all. In terms of silicon area, Apple ships iPhones, with a few other products mixed in. But mostly they just make iPhones.
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Re:TSMC confirms 3nm tech for 2022, could enable epic 80B tr... by hajile on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @03:05PM (#25280873)
Android devices outsell the iPhone almost 10 to 1. I'd wager that Qualcomm's 5nm orders will be very close to Apple's current order.
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Re:TSMC confirms 3nm tech for 2022, could enable epic 80B tr... by legulere on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @03:58PM (#25281548)
I think Android chips have less die area though (because they have less cache) and many android devices are rather cheap and have SoCs produced on older processes.
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Re:TSMC confirms 3nm tech for 2022, could enable epic 80B tr... by hajile on Wednesday December 02, 2020 @08:04PM (#25283983)
Snapdragon 865 is 83.54mm^2 (7nm)

Apple A12 is 83.27mm^2 (7nm)

Apple A13 is 98.48mm^2 (7nm+)

Apple A14 is 88mm^2 (5nm)

Not a very big difference. Remember, Qualcomm's chip includes a modem while Apple's does not (at present). Qualcomm has also been putting a lot of resources into other areas like neural processors. Their upcoming 888 claims 26 TOPS (vs 11 TOPS for Apple)

Cache is a very common misnomer too. A14 has 8MB of shared L2. 888 has 4MB of shared L3 plus 1MB for the X1 core and 0.5MB per each A78 core. It also has 3MB of what they call DSU cache which serves as a kind of general cache for everything on the chip that needs to hit memory. That's actually 1.5MB more total cache than Apple offers.

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