Chipmaker for iPhone 13 and MacBook Pros Hit by Gas Contamination

You won’t know Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. off the highest of your head, however you positively use devices that includes their chips. In reality, it’s the only semiconductor provider for Apple’s varied units. Now, Nikkei Asia is reporting TSMC’s most superior manufacturing unit for Apple processors has been hit by gasoline contamination.

The impacted manufacturing unit, Fab 18, produces the processors for Apple’s latest devices, together with these for the iPhone 13 and rumored redesigned MacBook Pros. The timing isn’t nice, as proper about now’s when Apple and its companions gear up for mass manufacturing forward of its annual iPhone launch occasion.

“Some TSMC production lines in the South Taiwan Science Park received certain gases from suppliers that are believed to be contaminated. These were quickly replaced with other gas supplies,” the corporate informed each Nikkei Asia and Reuters. The firm additionally famous it was finishing up follow-up operations to make sure manufacturing high quality gained’t be impacted. The excellent news is TSMC says it at present doesn’t consider this can have a significant affect on operations.

The information is a tad unsettling contemplating we’re at present within the midst of a world chip scarcity. While President Joe Biden has promised to address the issue, semiconductor firms—including TMSC—have warned that this might final by the whole lot of 2022 and Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger lately mentioned he believes the scarcity will get worse within the second half of this 12 months. Gelsinger additionally hinted that it may very nicely be a 12 months and even two years earlier than issues return to regular.

So far, Apple has been comparatively unscathed by the chip scarcity in comparison with different gadget makers however it seems that luck could lastly be working out. In an earnings call earlier this week, CEO Tim Cook warned that iPhone and iPad gross sales can be affected by “supply constraints” for silicon. While the corporate didn’t go into how the scarcity would possibly impression iPhone gross sales, Apple CFO Luca Maestri mentioned it expects the shortages will probably be “greater than what we experienced during the June quarter.”

However, Cook additionally clarified that almost all of the shortages weren’t associated to Apple Silicon. Instead, the issue lies with “legacy nodes” and higher demand for Apple merchandise than initially anticipated. Given these considerations, you may think about why even minor gasoline contamination on the plant producing the brand new M1, M1X, or M2 chips would possibly rattle nerves.

Last 12 months, provide chain constraints stemming from the pandemic led to Apple divvying up its fall product launches into three separate occasions spanning from September to November. This 12 months, all indications appear to level to one occasion. So lengthy as this gasoline contamination incident actually isn’t that massive of a deal, that’ll hopefully nonetheless maintain true.