Apple’s A-series smartphone processors have evolved significantly from the A7 (28nm) to the A18 Pro (3nm), adding more cores, transistors, and features. With each new node, TSMC forced Apple to charge more per wafer, so prices rose from $5,000 for a 28nm wafer with an A7 processor to $18,000 for a 3nm-class wafer for A17 and A18 series processors. reported Ben Bajarin, Chief Executive Officer and Principal. Analyst at Creative Strategies.
Bajarin said that as Apple’s A-series chips have evolved, the number of transistors has consistently increased, starting from 1 billion in the A7 and reaching 20 billion in the A18 Pro. This is not surprising since the number of cores and features is also increasing. The 2013 A7 had 2 high-performance cores and 4 clusters of GPUs, while the 2024 A18 Pro has 2 high-performance cores and 4 Energy. Efficient cores, 16-core NPU, and 6-cluster GPU.
We’ve got detailed price/die/density analysis for Apple A Silicon over time at TSMC. From A7 to A18: – Advancement from 28nm to 3nm – Most dramatic shrinkage occurs early (28nm → 20nm → 16nm/14nm) – Transistor count steadily increases from 1 billion (A7) to 20…2024 December 18th
A-series processors are aimed at smartphones, and Bajarin said their die sizes have been relatively consistent across generations, ranging from 80 square millimeters to 125 square millimeters. This has been made possible by the steady increase in transistor density facilitated by TSMC’s latest process technology.
The most significant increases in transistor density occurred at earlier nodes, such as from 28nm to 20nm and then to 16nm/14nm. However, recent process technologies (N5, N4P, N3B, N3E) have slow density gains. The peak period of transistor density improvement occurred around A11 (N10, 10nm class) and A12 (N7, 7nm class) with gains of 86% and 69%, respectively. Recent chips, including the A16 to A18 Pro, have seen a noticeable slowdown in density gains, primarily due to slower SRAM scaling.
But even as profits have fallen, production costs have risen sharply, Bajarin said. Wafer prices rose from $5,000 for A7 to $18,000 for A17 and A18 Pro, and the cost per square millimeter increased from $0.07 to $0.25.
Bajarin said his information came from a third-party supply chain report and that the company that produced it had a source in TSMC. Bajarin also triangulated certain factors through his own sources. In general, TSMC’s listed prices seem to be broadly in line with previous reports, but unofficial information should always be taken with a grain of salt.
Making things even more difficult for Apple, modern architectures have made it difficult to increase instructions per cycle (IPC) throughput, so the latest generation of processors (with the exception of the A18 and M4 series) are also seeing performance improvements. It’s slowing down. Despite this, Apple has managed to maintain an increase in performance per watt with each generation.
“Given the difficulty in extracting IPC benefits, increasing efficiency as much as possible is a viable performance-per-watt (benefits) strategy, even if area-related costs increase.” Bajarin he told Tom’s Hardware.
According to a frequently cited industry report, TSMC consistently sells wafers with sellable and non-sellable dies to customers, as well as sellable dies. Therefore, the number of chips obtained from a wafer depends on the manufacturing yield. A higher yield means more chips per wafer, and a lower yield means fewer chips. This yield-based variation impacts the cost-effectiveness of a customer’s wafers. However, there is one important part here. TSMC guarantees that we strive to meet specific yield targets before production begins.
If the actual yield is significantly lower, such as 10% to 15%, TSMC may provide financial compensation or discounts to affected customers. These conditions are intended to reassure customers about TSMC’s reliability and value for high-cost wafers.
As an alpha customer for the latest process technology, Apple is in a better position than other TSMC customers from a cost perspective because it has the opportunity to adjust manufacturing processes to reduce defect density and increase yield. There are also rumors that Apple is TSMC’s only customer that pays per chip rather than per wafer. If true, this would put Apple even further apart from other TSMC customers.
