TSMC's N2 (2nm) chip fab reportedly has a new customer: Intel, who joins the ranks of AMD and Apple tapping the Taiwanese fab goliath's bleeding edge production lines. It's
not the first time that Intel and TSMC struck a deal, but it's the first time the contract is for wafers etched with diminutive 2nm transistors.
The report from
Economic Daily News (via
TrendForce) also suggests that Intel is having TSMC manufacture the compute tile of its
upcoming "Nova Lake" chips. This seems to make sense to us, as the companies previously collaborated for Intel's Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake chips while former CEO Pat Gelsinger was still at the U.S. company's helm.
If you're wondering how this news fits with
Intel's 18A process, know that the 18A fabs in Arizona are expected to hit full steam in the second half of 2025, churning
Panther Lake mobile chips out of its proverbial assembly lines. Earlier industry rumors have pegged Intel 18A as the best of the current breed of high-end chip manufacturing processes, so Intel handing off Nova Lake production to TMSC seems to be a case of the company playing the long game and diversifying its supply chain.
In the meantime,
AMD reportedly cut a deal with TSMC to manufacture its EPYC "Venice" HPC chips on N2, and if the folks at
India Today got their guess right, Apple is tapping the Taiwanese 2nm foundries for the future iPhone 18's A20 SoC.
