The Made by Google event was held earlier this week, where the Pixel 11 series was unveiled, alongside other ecosystem products. Google’s latest generation flagship smartphones are powered by the proprietary Tensor G6 chipset, which promises on-device AI capabilities and a more powerful TPU. It was previously believed to arrive as TSMC’s first 2nm processor, but a Google official confirmed that is not the case. It is, instead, fabricated using TSMC’s 3nm node.
Tensor G6 a 3nm Chip
Taiwanese news agency CNA reports that Peng Yu-chun, Vice President of Hardware at Google, confirmed that the Tensor G6 chipset is fabricated using TSMC’s latest enhanced 3nm process. The processor, notably, powers Google’s latest flagship lineup, which includes the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold.
Google executive’s confirmation contradicts earlier reports, which claimed that Google would become the first smartphone maker to use TSMC’s 2nm manufacturing process, beating Apple in the process. Historically, the iPhone maker has usually been among the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer’s first major customers to adopt new chipmaking nodes.
This year, however, Google was rumoured to jump ahead of the queue for the Tensor G6 processor.
The Tensor G6 does have hardware upgrades, though. The Mountain View-based tech giant says its new flagship chip delivers up to 25 percent faster web browsing and 15 percent quicker app launches. The TPU is also claimed to have received a substantial upgrade, with 50 percent more compute, along with support for a new version of Gemini Nano designed for on-device AI tasks.
Apart from this, the Image Signal Processor (ISP) on the chip has also been upgraded for faster Night Sight processing and improvements to digital zoom capabilities on the Pixel 11 series.
Even if Google had adopted the 2nm fabrication process for the Tensor G6, it would have only been the second smartphone manufacturer to do so. The crown goes to Samsung, which introduced the Exynos 2600 SoC in December as the world’s first 2nm node chip fabricated using advanced GAA (Gate-All-Around) technology.
The SoC, which powers the Samsung Galaxy S26 series and the new Galaxy Z Flip 8, combines CPU, GPU, and NPU into a single compact chip for enhanced artificial intelligence (AI) and gaming experiences.
