Made in the USA: TSMC making new Apple Watch chips, AMD Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs in Arizona

TSMC's new fab in Arizona has reportedly picked up another contract from Apple, with reports that the Arizona fab will be making SiPs (Systems-in-Package) for the new Apple Watch.

2

Tim Culpan recently posted a report that says he's 99% sure that this is the new Apple S9 SiP and that TSMC Arizona is manufacturing at N4 (part of the N5 family of process nodes) adding that "while the S9 is made in Taiwan at N4 and is a derivation of the 16, so this would make sense".

Not only that, but TSMC Arizona is reportedly also making AMD's new Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" desktop Zen 5-based processors, to. Tim says that these Zen 5 processors are "now in production" at its fab in Arizona, and that TSMC has 3 processors in the ovens at Arizona, noting that Ryzen 9000 series CPUs were only released a few months ago "so the delay from first release to Arizona production is rather brief".

• Read more: Apple making some iPhone chips at TSMC in Arizona: major milestone for USA
• Read more: AMD should be TSMC's next huge customer for Arizona: HPC AI chips made in the USA in 2025

Tim has some highlights for TSMC Arizona production:

• Apple Watch SoCs join A16 iPhone processors in Arizona, both now in production
• AMD's Ryzen 9000 confirmed as in production at TSMC Arizona
• Phase 1A in operation at 10k/month
• Phase 1B facing tooling bottlenecks, total P1 capacity to hit 24k once P1B is running. This does NOT mean a "delay."
• TSMC Board to meet in Arizona in February (this was previously reported)