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TSMC has reportedly told major clients, including Apple, that prices for advanced sub-5nm chips will rise next year. Industry chatter points to an 8–10% increase across a wide swath of Apple’s custom silicon — from phone SoCs to Mac processors — driven by ballooning 2nm development costs and tight fabrication capacity.
Which Apple chips are affected — and how much?
According to a report aggregated on the Yeux1122 blog on Naver, TSMC has signaled an impending price bump for sub-5nm process nodes. The rumored increase of about 8–10% is expected to apply to many of Apple’s designs that rely on TSMC’s advanced nodes.
- A16 Bionic
- A17 (and A17 Pro)
- A18 and A19
- M3, M4 and M5 series Mac chips
These chips are largely produced on TSMC’s N3/N3E/N4P family and beyond, and any across-the-board pricing shift will ripple through Apple’s device cost structure.
Why are prices rising now?
There are a few interconnected reasons:
- Massive 2nm CapEx: TSMC is investing heavily to commercialize 2nm. Multiple outlets — including China Times — have warned that the new node’s development and tooling are far more expensive than prior nodes.
- Lower initial yields: Early 2nm runs are expected to be less efficient, raising per-unit costs until yields improve.
- Fab capacity squeeze: Global demand for advanced logic and AI-centric components is tightening slot availability at cutting-edge fabs.
- Memory and component pressure: A global pivot toward HBM for AI workloads is limiting LPDDR supply for mobile chips, which also pushes up cost for smartphones.
How big could the bill get?
The scale of the impact depends on which node a chip uses. China Times reported that TSMC expects 2nm chips to command a far higher per-unit price — a cited average of about $280 per unit — though that figure has not been independently verified and would far exceed current 3nm pricing.
For context, industry reporting from recent years offers these reference points:
- A16 Bionic (TSMC N4P) — reported around $110 per unit
- A17 Pro (3nm) — reported around $130 per unit
- A18 Pro (N3E) — reported at roughly $45 per unit in one supply-chain note
Those numbers vary by source and configuration, and an 8–10% increase on top of them would noticeably raise Apple’s bill of materials for iPhones and Macs.
Will end-user prices go up?
Not necessarily in lockstep, but component cost increases tend to pressure device pricing or margins over time. We’ve already seen memory and module inflation creep into smartphone BOMs: Goldman Sachs highlighted that a midrange Redmi model’s memory configuration now represents a larger share of retail cost compared with a year ago. Separately, Samsung supply-chain reports cited year-over-year rises in mobile SoC, camera module and LPDDR costs.
That means even if Apple absorbs part of the increase for competitive reasons, some combination of higher retail prices, slimmer margins, or adjustments to component mixes is possible.
How reliable is this rumor?
The claim comes via an industry blog that aggregates supply-chain chatter, and it references additional reports from outlets such as China Times and DigiTimes. The picture is plausible — TSMC’s 2nm CapEx and yield challenges are widely reported — but the exact numbers and timing remain unconfirmed by TSMC or Apple.
Keep an eye on updates: concrete contract notices, official statements from TSMC, or Apple’s supplier disclosures would be the clearest confirmations. For now, treat the pricing bump as a likely scenario rather than settled fact.
Apple’s roadmap points to a 2nm A20 arriving in future iPhones, and how TSMC prices and yields for that node play out will be one of the clearest tests of whether these rumored increases become long-term reality.
Source: wccftech
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