TSMC will deliver 18,000 M1 chips to Apple in Q4 2020, accounting for 25% of 5nm production capacity

According to foreign media reports, in previous reports, foreign media mentioned that TSMC's 5nm process production capacity has reached its limit. While it is manufacturing A14 processors on a large scale for Apple, it is difficult to cope with Apple's large number of M1 chip foundry orders. Analysts believe that Samsung is expected to obtain some of Apple's M1 chip foundry orders. 

It is not clear how many M1 chips TSMC will manufacture for Apple, but foreign media stated in the latest report that the agreement signed between Apple and TSMC is to ship 18,000 wafers of M1 chips in the fourth quarter.

However, some foreign media also reported that TSMC shipped 18,000 M1 chip wafers to Apple in the fourth quarter, but the numbers could not be verified because some content in the contract was confidential.

TSMC's 5nm process was put into mass production in the first quarter of this year. After it could no longer manufacture chips for Huawei after September 15, TSMC's 5nm process was mainly used to manufacture products for Apple. Research institutions have previously estimated that the foundry orders for the M1 chip are expected to account for 25% of TSMC's 5nm process capacity.

The M1 chip is Apple's first self-developed Mac chip based on the Arm architecture. It is manufactured using the most advanced 5nm process, integrates 16 billion transistors, and is equipped with an 8-core central processing unit, an 8-core graphics processor, and a 16-core architecture neural network engine.