Guo Mingqi predicts: iPhone 18 series may have chip categorization, not all series using TSMC 2 nanometer technology.

Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) has just released its latest smartphone - the iPhone 16, but the industry's focus has quickly shifted to its future product line. An analyst has begun to predict that due to cost issues, there may be greater differentiation between models in the iPhone 18 series. In a recent article by Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at Tianfeng International, he predicts that the iPhone 18 series for 2026 will use processors manufactured with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.'s 2-nanometer technology. However, he points out that not all iPhone 18 models will be equipped with this advanced 2-nanometer processor due to cost considerations. Kuo also mentioned that the iPhone 17 series will utilize Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.'s 2-nanometer technology. As chip manufacturing processes continue to advance, the importance of yield - the number of qualified chips that can meet market demand - in product decisions is increasing. He expects that the high cost of the 2-nanometer process may result in further performance differences between the iPhone 18 Pro and the standard iPhone 18. Currently, the iPhone 16 series is equipped with the A18 chip manufactured with 3-nanometer technology, which has a 6-core CPU and 5-core GPU. The high-end iPhone 16 Pro, on the other hand, features the more advanced 3-nanometer A18 Pro chip, which has a 16-core neural engine capable of performing 350 trillion operations per second, along with a 6-core GPU, providing better ray tracing performance for AAA-grade games.