A new report sheds light on what type of chips the iPhone 17 and iPhone 18 will use – 3nm and 2nm.
Apple Planning to Use 3nm Chips in the iPhone 17 While it Will Opt for 2nm for the iPhone 18 Pro Due to Cost Concerns
At the time of writing, the iPhone 16 uses a chip made on the 3nm process. This is why it’s power efficient and far more capable than the chips before it. However, Ming-Chi Kuo has chimed in with an interesting little tidbit that sheds light on what chip Apple intends to use in the iPhone 17 and iPhone 18.
I won’t go into technical details regarding chip processes, but I will say this – when you go from 3nm to 2nm or below, you are able to fit more transistors on a chip, allowing for faster processing speeds and power efficiency. With the iPhone 17, Apple intends to use the 3nm chip once again on all models.
At best, Apple may add more transistors, CPU and GPU cores to make the chip powerful compared to what is available today. However, with the iPhone 18 lineup, Apple may use a mix of 2nm and 3nm chips. The iPhone 18 Pro will most likely get the more advanced 2nm chips and Apple may stick with 3nm chips for the standard iPhone 18 models due to cost concerns.
With the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, Apple made a very interesting move by bridging the gap between performance in both smartphones. With the iPhone 17, Apple intends to keep things consistent, but with iPhone 18, the difference in chip generation alone means the gap is going to be a big one.
TSMC is going to manufacture these 2nm chips in 2025 for the iPhone 18 and Apple will be the first customer to get to use it in its products. It’s unclear whether Apple intends to buy out the entire 2nm process for its product lineup like it did for 3nm with the announcement of M3 chips.
Whatever the case may be here, the move from 3nm to 2nm is going to be a big one for Apple. The difference in performance will be more felt on a Mac where users tend to push their computers to the limit using certain tasks.
