Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro Release Potentially Delayed to 2026: TSMC Faces Chip Production Hurdles
Reports indicate that Apple aimed to unveil the iPhone 17 Pro in 2025, equipped with an advanced 2nm chipset. However, fresh insights from South Korea suggest that this timeline may need a revision, potentially pushing the launch back by a year.
Production Challenges for TSMC’s 2nm Chips
Insiders have revealed that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is currently grappling with issues related to wafer yield. The production of the highly anticipated 2nm chips has not yet received clearance for mass manufacturing. There is a significant demand for prototype products, and TSMC finds itself needing to reconfigure its existing fabrication capabilities for this new technology—a process expected to take considerable time.
Impact on Apple’s Supply Chain and Other Clients
While TSMC primarily fabricates chips for Apple’s devices—including its flagship iPhones and MacBooks—it also caters to other major industry players such as Nvidia and Qualcomm. Reports suggest these companies are in discussions with Samsung Electronics about expanding their manufacturing capabilities beyond Taiwan due to geopolitical tensions impacting operations there.
Current Production Capacity and Future Plans
This month, TSMC has been operating at a production level of roughly 10,000 wafers each month but aims to ramp up this figure dramatically—to around 80,000 by the year 2026. The newly established facility in Arizona will play a crucial role in reaching an overall capacity goal of approximately 140,000 monthly wafers.
TSMC’s semiconductor fabrication site situated in Phoenix, Arizona
The Financial Toll of Production Inefficiencies
The Economic Daily from Taiwan reported that current yields for the upcoming generation of 2nm wafers hover at around just 60%, meaning approximately four out of every ten wafers are unusable. With each wafer costing about KRW 44 million (in excess of $30,000), TSMC incurs substantial losses—estimated at around $120 million every month—due solely to inefficiencies stemming from this new manufacturing process.
A Short-Term Solution: Sticking With Proven Technology
The path forward seems transparent: Apple is poised to continue utilizing its existing technologies based on a robust three-nanometer process over the next year. This decision will afford TSMC vital time needed to enhance wafer yield rates while refining pricing strategies going forward. Meanwhile, Samsung faces similar challenges; it must catch up on both improving yield rates and enhancing performance metrics associated with its own struggling line-up of second-generation second-nanometer chips compared against its Taiwanese counterpart.
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