Apple certainly caused a major shock in the semiconductor
world with the release of the first generation of proprietary chips, the
Silicon M1 . The launch in November 2020 was just the beginning of what
promises to be a new era in Cupertino, where every product is now enhanced by
the most surprising SOC of last year.
Obviously, the Apple does not think of stopping here at all,
on the contrary the goal is to outclass the direct competition with
increasingly powerful and competitive chips, to be implemented in the entire
range of devices offered on the market, from Mac and MacBook to iPad and
iPhone. Although the indiscretions of the tipster in the sector suggest a long
development phase for more variants of the next generation, all eyes remain on
the chip currently called M2.
What we know about the M1X and M2 chips
According to multiple rumors spread since the beginning of
2021 , at its laboratories in Cupertino Apple is working on a final product
that " significantly surpasses " not only the latest Macs released
with Intel processors, so as to shoot an arrow and hit its rivals hard. but
also the first generation of M1 chips. The current project would see a chip
with up to 16 cores in the pipeline , of which 12 for high performance and 4
for energy efficiency, consequently a big.LITTLE hybrid configuration, with a
maximum clock of 3.2 GHz. Not only that, but there would also be an additional
series of chips (it is not known whether it is a variant of M2 or another
System- on-a-chip) completely dedicated to high-end desktop computers, with 32
high-performance cores. In short, a real "all-in".
But in addition to the CPU, Apple is also working on the GPU
to be used in the M2 SoC: in the case of the chip with a 16-core CPU we are
talking about a 16 or 32-core GPU, while for the more expensive options, the
voices focus on graphics chips. 64 and / or 128 cores, with 256 EU and up to 16
GB of video memory. The possibility of downsizing during the development phase
is not excluded, but a significant leap in performance is practically ensured
compared to the already incredible performance of the 8-core M1 chip.
There are also reports of the attendance of an extremely
improved neural network, support for memory cuts up to 32 or 64 GB of LPDDR4X
RAM and four Thunderbolt ports. An intermediate step towards these great news
we will see it with the M1X chip , of which not many details are known except
that it will present 10 cores instead of the 8 cores of the original M1
variant, and which will support more Thunderbolt ports and guarantee more
functionality than the predecessor.
On which devices they might appear
The tipster at the moment are certain that the Apple Silicon
M2 SoC will debut on the market only in 2022 with the launch of the next series
of MacBook Air. Initially there was talk of a landing on the new completely
renewed MacBook Pro, yet the iOS developer Dylandkt had something to say.
According to him, in fact, "Apple is planning two different chips for the
new MacBook Pro, codenamed Jade C-Chop and Jade C-Die. Both will have 8
high-performance core and 2 energy-efficient cores, with 16 or 32 graphics
cores, for a design different from M1 and support for multiple external
monitors " .
This generation of chips, however, will be M1X, ergo only an
improvement of the already existing M1 chips and not a new iteration called
M2.For M1X, therefore, a launch is expected in 2021 with the MacBook Pro ,
while the SoC M2 have a still unknown fate.Production, on the other hand, is
already underway: Apple's main partner, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Company (TSMC), would have started mass-producing the M1X chips and the first
M2 models.in April 2021, on 5-nanometer nodes, although the initial goal was to
produce them on 4-nanometer nodes. This will be followed by a three-month
production process and a test start in July, to be completed with a gradual
release in two different periods. Any confirmation could come during the
Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) of 2021, a major event dedicated to
developers that will be held only digitally starting from 7 June 2021. On this
occasion, Apple should present the latest news for its iOS operating systems,
iPadOS, macOS and watchOS, but it should also release some small world preview
details regarding the new hardware, therefore the M1X and M2 chipsets.
A successful strategy
Step by step, Apple is continuing on this new, more
"autonomous" path, detached from third party manufacturers such as
Intel and AMD to fully devote itself to its line of graphics chips and
processors. M1 was an extremely convincing debut, as we were able to establish
in our review of the MacBook Air M1 . The ecosystem of Cupertino is becoming
more and more "Applecentric" thanks to the implementation of these
new products, essential pieces in the great puzzle that makes up the Apple . If
the M1 design turned out to be surprising and performing, we can only expect
great news for the next iterations of Apple's SoCs.
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