The Information‘s Wayne Ma on Friday shared details that he says are Apple’s plans for its Apple Silicon chips that will succeed the first-generation M1 series chips, which are manufactured by TSMC using its 5nm process.
Ma claims Apple and TSMC are planning to manufacture second-generation Apple silicon chips using an enhanced version of TSMC’s 5nm process. The chips will reportedly include two dies, which will allow for more cores. The chips are said to be destined for upcoming MacBook Pro models and other Mac desktops.
Apple’s third-generation chips are expected to be a “much bigger leap” and will be manufactured with TSMC’s 3nm process and have up to four dies, which the report says could allow for up to 40 compute cores. (The M1 chip has an 8-core CPU and the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips have 10-core CPUs.)
The report’s sources indicate TSMC could be ready to reliably 3nm chips by 2023 for use in both Macs and iPhones. The third-generation chips (said to be codenamed Ibiza, Lobos, and Palma), will likely debut in higher-end Macs first.
The report also says the next Mac Pro will use a variant of the M1 Max chip, with at least two dies.