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The iPhone's "A16" chip will reportedly be built using the same process as the iPhone 13's "A15 Bionic," while Apple's "M2" chip designed for the next-generation Mac will offer an even bigger leap in performance. Meanwhile, according to a person familiar with the matter named "ShrimpApplePro," Apple is working on a "final" M1 chip variant that uses more powerful cores from the A15.
In a thread on Twitter, ShrimpApplePro shared information from "a pretty reliable source" that allegedly revealed Apple's chip plans for its upcoming A16 and M2 chips, as well as the "final" variant of the M1 series chips.
Like the A14, A15, and M1 chips, the A16 will reportedly use TSMC's 5nm process. Previous reports were unclear whether the A16 would be manufactured using TSMC's more advanced 4nm process, with an ambiguous report from DigiTimes saying Apple plans to use TSMC's 4nm N4P process — but N4P is actually an enhanced, third-generation version of the 5nm process. ShrimpApplePro, on the other hand, says the A16 will use TSMC's N5P process. This suggests that the A16 may not be as big of an upgrade as previously thought.
According to this information, the improvements of A16 will come from minor improvements to the CPU, GPU and memory. According to the report, ShrimpApplePro said that A16 will specifically adopt LPDDR 5 memory. LPDDR5 memory is 1.5 times faster than the LPDDR 4X memory paired with the A15 chip and saves 30% energy.
The M2 chip will apparently be the first Apple chip to make the leap to TSMC's 3nm process, skipping 4nm entirely. The M2 is believed to be Apple's first custom ARMv9 processor.
Apple is also said to be working on a "final SoC in the M1 family" featuring updated cores. The M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 Ultra chips use energy-efficient "Icestorm" cores and high-performance "Firestorm" cores - just like the A14 Bionic chip. Apple's final M1 variant will allegedly be based on the A15 Bionic, with energy-efficient "Blizzard" cores and high-performance "Avalanche" cores.
This is the last chip in the M1 series and it may be used in the next-generation Mac Pro, which Apple explicitly stated earlier this year. Currently, Apple's most powerful chip is the M1 Ultra, which is actually a double-core version of the M1 Max with a 20-core CPU and a 64-core GPU. With the arrival of the first Apple silicon chip Mac Pro, Apple is thought to be working on a chip even more powerful than the M1 Ultra. The M1 Ultra in the Mac Studio is already faster than the 28-core Intel Xeon chip, so the Mac Pro needs to make a bigger leap in performance.
Alternatively, if it's not the Mac Pro, the new chip could be a variant of the standard M1 chip. Terry Gou said earlier this year that the 2022 MacBook Air will retain the M1 chip, not the M2 chip, so the Shrimp Apple Pro rumor could be about the entry-level M1, not the top-of-the-line M1 variant of the Apple Silicon Mac Pro, or something else entirely. Offering a device with a standard M1 chip could help Apple buy time before releasing a Mac with an M2 chip.
Other reports claim that the A16 chip will only debut in the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, with the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max continuing to use the iPhone 13's A15 Bionic chip, while the M2 chip will primarily be found in a redesigned MacBook Air later this year, as well as new Mac computers that appear later, and possibly the next-generation iPad Pro.
ShrimpApplePro is unsure about the final naming of the "A16," "M2," and eventual M1 chip variants, and says the rumor should be taken with a grain of salt.
*Disclaimer: This article is originally written by the author. The content of the article is the author's personal opinion. Semiconductor Industry Observer reprints it only to convey a different point of view. It does not mean that Semiconductor Industry Observer agrees or supports this point of view. If you have any objections, please contact Semiconductor Industry Observer.
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