Apple’s S9 chip for the Apple Watch is reportedly now manufactured in the U.S. at TSMC’s Phoenix, Arizona facility.

The details come from tech columnist Tim Culpan, who noted that TSMC started producing the A16 Bionic chip for the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus in the same facility last year.

The S9 chip debuted in 2023 with the Apple Watch Series 9. It sports a 64-bit dual processor, 64GB of internal memory, and a four-core Neural Engine.

Currently, the S9 chip is only used in the Apple Watch Ultra 2, as the new Series 10 Watch has the S10 chip built in.

Both the A16 and the S9 chips are produced using TSMC’s 4-nanometer process, N4. TSMC calls the process “an enhanced version of 5nm (N5) technology with density improvement.” The company debuted the process in 2022.

Reportedly, this Arizona facility is the company’s first major semiconductor manufacturing facility outside Taiwan. Although it is in the early stages, production appears to be underway.

According to Culpan, Phase 1A (P1A) of production is operational and has a capacity of 10,000 wafers per month. Apple is among the customers of TSMC Arizona, as is AMD. Culpan reports that AMD’s Ryzen 9000 chips are now in production at the facility.

One wafer can reportedly make hundreds of chips, although this depends on several factors related to the size and architecture of the processor.

Currently, TSMC is working on ramping production even further. Phase 1B is expected to bring production up to 24,000 wafers per month starting in the first quarter of 2025.

Source: Culpan Via: MacRumors