The most advanced SoCs that we can find in some Apple devices, such as iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone Duo or iMac 2026, are made by TSMC in its N2 node (2 nm). Little by little this integration technology will reach other products of the Cupertino company, but it is likely that this class of integrated circuits will be installed. Want to be slower than Apple.
In fact, the production capacity of TSMC’s most advanced nodes in the last fiscal quarter limited the availability of the most sophisticated SoCs designed by the Apple firm. This scenario presents a problem for Apple, and perhaps also for other clients of this Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer, such as Nvidia, AMD or Qualcomm. However, luckily for them, the outlook is starting to improve.
TSMC does not disclose the per-wafer performance of its lithography nodes, but this information is often leaked. In March 2025, according to the leak, the per-wafer performance of the N2 node was around 60%, so only 60 out of every 100 chips produced were working properly. Currently, again according to the leak, the performance of this node is close to 90%. This is the natural evolution of a lithography technology, and 90% great news for Apple and other TSMC customers.
The supply problem has not gone away
Improving the performance of the most advanced lithography nodes is not the only challenge facing the semiconductor manufacturing industry. The data center’s appetite for artificial intelligence (AI) is taking over some cutting-edge nodes because it’s often more profitable for chipmakers to make integrated circuits that end up in data centers than to make semiconductors for the consumer market.
Be that as it may, TSMC’s most advanced nodes already achieve near-optimal yields per wafer seem to be easing market pressure on the cutting-edge chipmaker. According to Digitimes, Apple has acknowledged the issue This situation is improvingAnd it has also confirmed that it is already shifting most of its portfolio to this manufacturing technology
Apple has faced supply restrictions that have affected production of its iPhones, Macs and iPads
Over the past few months, the company has faced supply constraints that have affected its production of iPhones, Macs and iPads, and it estimates that the constraints will continue to erode production of Macs and iPads in the last quarter of 2026. Apple now blames the problem on the availability of memory chips, and supply chain pressure certainly doesn’t help.
Although the company currently has access to 2nm SoCs compared to earlier this year, it cannot avoid supply chain fragility. Not Apple, not Google, not Meta. No one can do it. All technology companies that manufacture hardware face changes in the key minerals market and pressure to build large numbers of AI data centers. While TSMC’s 2nm nodes have already achieved high per-wafer performance, the end of the component crisis still seems far off.
Picture | TSMC
More information Digitimes
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