Track Hyper | Innovations in Chip Manufacturing and Packaging for the iPhone 18 Series

Author: Zhou Yuan / Wall Street Journal

Despite increasing criticism of Apple in recent years due to a lack of innovation, every move made by Apple remains the focus of the global technology community.

Recently, it has been reported that Apple plans to equip the iPhone 18 series, set to be released in 2026, and the foldable model iPhone 18 Fold (rumored name), with the A20 chip based on TSMC's second-generation 2nm process (N2).

On June 3rd, industry sources indicated that the engineering validation data for TSMC's N2 process showed that the trial production yield of wafers using the N2 process exceeded 60%, far surpassing industry expectations.

As TSMC's first mass production process utilizing fully wrapped gate (GAA) technology, the N2 process offers a 15% increase in computing speed and a 30% increase in transistor integration density while reducing power consumption by 30% compared to the first-generation 3nm (N3) process.

At the 2024 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), TSMC confirmed that the yield of its 256MB SRAM module has exceeded 90%, demonstrating its mature mass production readiness.

Compared to performance, the innovation in packaging technology of TSMC's N2 process is the bigger highlight. As Moore's Law slows down, chip technology updates are increasingly focused on packaging technology.

The core of this technological update is the first application of wafer-level multi-chip module (WMCM) packaging technology.

This technology breaks away from traditional packaging models by directly integrating components such as SoC and DRAM at the wafer level, eliminating intermediary layers or substrates, and achieving a 10%-15% reduction in packaging area.

According to technical disassembly by industry analysis firm TechInsights, this integration method enhances data transmission efficiency and reduces energy consumption by shortening signal transmission paths.

In simpler terms, traditional packaging requires cutting the wafer and then individually packaging the chips, while WMCM completes the stacking and interconnection of multiple chips directly on the wafer, which is then cut into modules as a whole.

This means that the signal paths between chips are shortened by over 70%, significantly reducing parasitic resistance and capacitance, and greatly improving signal transmission speed and energy efficiency.

In other words, tasks that originally required multiple independent chips to collaborate (such as AI computing and image processing) can now be completed within a single module through WMCM packaging. The operating speed and responsiveness of smartphones will be significantly better than they are now. What’s more, this improvement will be perceptible to end users.

Counterpoint research shows that only 23% of high-end smartphone users can clearly perceive the experiential differences brought by chip process upgrades, while 62% of users are more concerned about visible features such as battery life and camera performance.

Therefore, Apple must be capable of translating the energy efficiency advantages of WMCM into perceivable battery life extensions or achieving better thermal optimization, rather than falling into the trap of parameter "optimization" again.

TSMC has set up a dedicated WMCM production line at its Chiayi AP7 plant in Taiwan for Apple, with mass production expected to scale in the fourth quarter of 2026, initially with a monthly capacity of 30,000 wafers, increasing to over 80,000 wafers by 2027 Wall Street Watch noted that the deep technological binding between Apple and TSMC is continuing to strengthen.

As a contributor to 35% of TSMC's advanced process revenue (according to TSMC's 2024 financial report), Apple's WMCM dedicated production line adopts a "dedicated factory" model, which ensures supply stability and promotes the transformation of smartphone chips towards "heterogeneous integration."

Although Samsung's concurrently developed 2nm GAA process is temporarily lagging due to an initial yield rate of less than 60% (data from the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association), the Android camp has accelerated its follow-up: Qualcomm plans to pilot a similar multi-chip integration solution in 2027, while MediaTek is narrowing the gap by developing 3D packaging technology in collaboration with TSMC.

At the product design level, WMCM provides Apple with a flexible layered strategy: the A20 chip (SoC) can enhance high-performance computing capabilities by integrating dedicated components, while the basic model controls costs through simplified packaging.

This modular design resonates with the M series chip architecture of Apple's Mac product line, promoting the deep integration of mobile devices and PC chip ecosystems.

TSMC's technical data shows that WMCM packaging can reduce the chip junction temperature by 5-8℃, significantly improving device performance stability under high-load scenarios.

As a result, the A20 chip will abandon the long-used InFo-PoP packaging process and adopt TSMC's exclusive WMCM wafer-level multi-chip packaging technology.

The WMCM packaging process used in the A20 chip is beneficial for enhancing edge computing power, pushing the iPhone towards evolution as an "edge AI terminal," capable of supporting complex tasks such as running lightweight large language models and real-time generative AI.

This places higher demands on the underlying optimization of the iOS system: it needs to achieve precise balance between AI task scheduling, power consumption control, and thermal management, avoiding the performance fluctuation issues caused by thermal design in the iPhone 15 series, and truly unleashing hardware potential.

The innovation in Apple's chip technology is essentially a practice of the "beyond Moore" concept: breaking through the physical limits of single-process miniaturization through system-level integration.

If WMCM technology is successfully commercialized, it will lead the semiconductor industry into a new phase of "packaging defining chips," shifting the design focus from solely relying on process advancements to system architecture innovation.

In fact, this change has already occurred. For example, Huawei has fully promoted SoC chip architecture innovation and subsequent packaging process iterations since the Kirin 990 5G SoC to enhance SoC chip performance.

If the A20 chip using WMCM technology significantly enhances the perceptible experience of smartphones, then "packaging defining chips" will become the mainstream in the future.

Conversely, if mass production yield rates, cost control, or user experience do not meet expectations, it may trigger a rational examination of advanced packaging technology within the industry.

From the perspective of industrial development history, the dual-core architecture of the A5 chip in 2011 and the neural engine of the A11 chip in 2017 reshaped the performance benchmarks of smartphones through architectural innovation.

The famous Kirin 990 5G chip, as the world's first flagship SoC to integrate a 5G modem, adopted the Da Vinci Architecture NPU for the first time in a flagship SoC and innovatively designed the NPU dual big core and NPU micro core architecture, which is a typical example of "SoC chip architecture innovation." The success of TSMC's 2nm process combined with WMCM packaging depends on TSMC's continuous optimization capability of the N2 process, the yield ramp-up speed of WMCM technology, and Apple's engineering capability to translate technological advantages into end-user experience.

For segment C users, the real concerns are whether battery life can break the one-charge-a-day barrier, whether AI features significantly enhance usage efficiency, and whether the heat dissipation and performance of foldable screen models achieve a practical balance.

These demands can ultimately be answered in the market through N2 + WMCM packaging + Apple's innovative engineering capabilities.

The chip transformation of Apple's 2026 iPhone represents a precise game between technological radicalism and commercial stability.

The application of WMCM technology marks a shift in smartphone chip competition from "single performance comparison" to a comprehensive contest of "system-level innovation," which is expected to reshape the competitive paradigm of the entire semiconductor industry.

For Apple, only by deeply binding technological breakthroughs with user value and finding a dynamic balance between supply chain risks and innovation speed can it open up new incremental space in the current slowdown of the smartphone market.

This is not only an upgrade at the hardware level but also a continuous exploration of the core question of "how technology serves humanity": the ultimate value of technology lies in making complex innovations simple and perceptible