15 ms·

Apple M2 Pro to use new 3nm process

285 points by nateb2022 4y ago

drexlspivey 4y ago
Can anyone speculate what will happen to Apple if for any reason TSM abruptly stops supplying chips? Will their revenue just drop by 80%?
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  You mean TSMC. Well, they would be seriously hurt. However, does that matter when almost every tech company (including Qualcomm, MediaTek, AMD, Apple, ARM, Broadcom, Marvell, Nvidia, Intel, so forth) would also be harmed? TSMC going down is basically the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) of tech companies. Kind of a single point of failure. Intel would probably weather it best but would still be hurt because they need TSMC for some products. Plus, well, in the event of TSMC's destruction (most likely by a Chinese invasion), Intel might raise prices considerably or even stop sale to consumers especially as their chips would now have major strategic value for government operations. NVIDIA might also survive by reviving older products which can be manufactured by Samsung in Korea, but same situation about the strategic value there, and getting chips from Korea to US might be difficult in such a conflict.
  - nomel 4y ago
    > TSMC going down is basically the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) of tech companies. This is why it's appropriately called the "Silicon Shield", within Taiwan: https://semiwiki.com/china/314669-the-evolution-of-taiwans-silicon-shield/ https://semiwiki.com/china/314669-the-evolution-of-taiwans-s...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - earthscienceman 4y ago
    Does anyone have any resources that explain the historical reason(s) TSMC became what it is? How did the world's most important hardware manufacturer manage to get constructed on a geopolitical pinchpoint?
    - kochb 4y ago
      This podcast covers most of the important points: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/tsmc https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/tsmc
- wilsonnb3 4y ago
  Everybody except Intel and Samsung is screwed if TSMC stops making chips. Apple (and the rest of the mobile industry) would try to move to using Samsung's fabs and Intel would go back to being the undisputed king on desktops, laptops, and servers. I think TSMC has like 2-3 times the fab capacity that Samsung does right now for modern chips, so there would be a huge chip shortage. Apple's $200 billion cash pile would come in handy when trying to buy fab capacity from Samsung so they might come out ahead of less cash-rich competitors. There would be a significant hit to processor performance. Samsung fabbed the recent Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which has comparable single core performance to the iPhone 7's A10 fusion chip.
  - Tostino 4y ago
    The performance of that core is not necessarily all dependent on the node... Apple have been lauded for their designs. Samsung / arm, not so much.
    - kergonath 4y ago
      > Samsung / arm, not so much. I don’t think that is fair. ARM and Apple have very different objectives. Apple does not care if its CPU design division makes any money and they can get away with very large SoCs that rely on cutting edge manufacturing. ARM on the other hand needs to sell designs that manufacturers can use to make money. So there is a tendency to go towards simpler designs that are easier to manufacture. So sure, Apple has an edge in performance. But they don’t have the same business model or optimise for the same things.
  - florakel 4y ago
    >There would be a significant hit to processor performance. You are probably right. Look at the gains Qualcomm saw by migrating from Samsung to TSMC: https://www.anandtech.com/show/17395/qualcomm-announces-snapdragon-8-gen-1-moving-to-tsmc-for-more-speed-lower-power https://www.anandtech.com/show/17395/qualcomm-announces-snap...
    - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
- beautifulfreak 4y ago
  TSMC announced its new Phoenix Arizona fab would begin mass production in the first quarter of 2024.
  - bogomipz 4y ago
    Similarly Intel just announced a new partnership to accomplish similar. Also in Arizon: https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2022-08-23/intel-brookfield-to-invest-up-to-30-billion-in-arizona-chip-factories https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2022-08-23/...
  - eis 4y ago
    By that time it'll be far from bleeding edge. The Taiwan fab will be close to N2 while the Arizona fab will be able to produce 5nm generation chips, that'll be 4-5 year old tech then.
  - joenathanone 4y ago
    That is funny we are literally about to run out of water over here in AZ.
- zaroth 4y ago
  If WW3 goes hot beyond the regional proxies, we all lose pretty hard. A new iPhone 14 or Mac M2 will be a pipe that we all chuckle about how we used to care about such things.
  - kyriakos 4y ago
    If the economic situation we are all into at the moment is because of Ukraine war, I think is ww3 happens slower iPhones will be the least of our concerns.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ytdytvhxgydvhh 4y ago
  Way down the road I hope Tim Cook writes a memoir. I’m curious as to his unvarnished thoughts about doing business in (and being so reliant on) Taiwan and China. I’m sure he can’t publicly express some of those thoughts without unnecessarily adding risk for Apple but he must have lots of interesting opinions about things like being reliant on TSMC vs trying to build their own fabs, etc.
  - bredren 4y ago
    Based on how Jobs life and legacy are discussed at Apple, I doubt cook will ever speak frankly about matters that affect Apple. Kara Swisher is interviewing him and Laureen Powell Jobs soon. I expect that interview to continue to focus on only the best possible characterizations of Steve.
  - mrtksn 4y ago
    I recall Tim Cook speaking about it actually. He says, Apple is there not because it's cheap but because they actually have unmatched engineering capacity. He was talking about how much quicker everything can get moving and how much accessible engineering talent they have. It makes sense, after all there are much poorer countries in the world but you can't expect for Afghanistan for example be like "okay okay Apple, we will do the chips and the phone at %25 discount". In fact, you can't expect even EU or USA to start easily doing that because the manufacturing know how is long gone with the de-industrialisation of the west. Sure, there's some talent and capacity left but its not anywhere near the scale of what exists in Taiwan and China.
- mlindner 4y ago
  For what reason would TSMC abruptly stop supplying chips short of war? There's nothing other than war that would cause it. And if there's a war, Apple's profits are the least of problems.
  - Bud 4y ago
    Climate change impacts or global pandemics could also significantly impact TSMC's operations. Or, Chinese actions that are somewhat short of full-on war. Also relevant here: TSMC is building a chip fab in the US.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    > For what reason would TSMC abruptly stop supplying chips short of war? Earthquakes would be top of my list of things that would cause problems.
    - kaushikc 4y ago
      The facilities are made to mitigate and reduce damage due to earthquakes. https://esg.tsmc.com/en/update/governance/caseStudy/1/index.html#:~:text=TSMC%20improved%20seismic%20resistance%20of,1.5%20times%20for%20Nonstructural%20components https://esg.tsmc.com/en/update/governance/caseStudy/1/index.....
  - rowanG077 4y ago
    Meteor, Large tsunami, Earth quake, Solar flare, extremely infectious disease that isn't as weak as Covid-19. There are so many natural disasters that could cripple or outright destroy TSMC production facilities.
    - mlindner 4y ago
      Meteor and Solar Flare that are big enough to cause problems would be global problems. Large tsunami is possible, but I doubt they built these things right next to the ocean, and as the other poster says they're built to withstand large earthquakes. Infectious diseases are another global problem.
- jkestner 4y ago
  Repeat of the car market? I'm going to make a bunch of money off the old computers collecting dust here, and Apple's going to have to unlock support for new OSes on them, making all its money on services.
- novok 4y ago
  If TSMC poofed out of existence because of a few bombs from china or a freak super natural disaster, global GDP would drop significantly and quickly. One of the biggest SPOF that I'm worried about in the world.
vondro 4y ago
So we'll see at least 1-2 years of Apple Silicon being at least one node ahead of competition. I am curious for how long will be Apple able to pull this lead off, and what the perf/watt will look like when (if?) AMD has node parity with Apple in the near future. Or when perhaps Intel uses TSMC as well, and the same process node.
- r00fus 4y ago
  I think this was Apple's game for a LONG time. They have led in mobile chips to the point where they are sometimes 2 years ahead of the competition. They do this using their monopsony power (they will buy all the fab capacity at TSMC and/or Samsung, and well before competition is aiming to do so either).
  - klelatti 4y ago
    IIRC they were using TSMC before TSMC had a material process lead and supported them (and moved away from Samsung) with big contracts and a long term commitment. Hardly surprising that they have first go a new process. Not a risk less bet but one that has paid off.
    - kergonath 4y ago
      Exactly. You cannot look at that as if they decided 2 years ago to just buy all the capacity. Their relationship with TSMC goes back way further than that, and there have been several ups and downs along the way.
  - joshstrange 4y ago
    They absolutely use their power (aka money) to buy fab capacity but they are also responsible for a ton of investment in fabs (new fabs and new nodes). Because of that investment they get first dibs and the new node. In the end it's up to the the reader to decide if this is a net positive for the industry (would we be moving as fast without Apple's investment? Even accounting for the delay in getting fab time until after Apple gets a taste).
  - 4y ago
adtac 4y ago
Is the node process size comparable across architectures?
- remlov 4y ago
  No. At these nodes it's all marketing.
- muricula 4y ago
  Process and architecture are mostly independent. Node process is determined by the physical manufacturing. Architecture is determined by the design templated on during manufacturing. You could make an arm core on an intel process (which I think even happens in some of their testing phases). So yes.
- cpurdy 4y ago
  No, not really. The "3nm" in the "3nm process" is not a measure of anything in particular, and even if it is a measure, the measure may or may not be in the neighborhood of 3nm. Several years ago, fabs started naming each next-gen process with a smaller number of nanometers, even if the process size didn't change. It's just marketing now.
georgelyon 4y ago
If M2 Pro is similar to M1 Pro (two M1s duct-taped together with very fancy duct tape), this is interesting because usually chips need to be significantly reworked for a newer process and this implies an M2 core complex will be printable both at 5nm and 3nm. It would be interesting to know how much of this is fabrication becoming more standardized and how much is Apple's core designs being flexible. If this is the latter, then Apple has a significant advantage beyond just saturating the most recent process node.
- skavi 4y ago
  The M1 Pro was not two M1s duct taped together. Their core configurations do not share the same proportions (8+2 vs 4+4). You may be thinking of the GPUs? Each step in M1 -> M1 Pro -> M1 Max -> M1 Ultra represents a doubling of GPU cores. Or you may be thinking of the M1 Max and Ultra. The Ultra is nearly just two Maxes. Regarding your point about flexibility, it’s hardly unprecedented for the same core to be used on different processes. Apple has at times contracted Samsung and TSMC for the same SoC. Qualcomm just recently ported their flagship SoC from Samsung to TSMC. Even Intel backported Sunny Cove to 14nm. And of course there’s ARM.
  - wolf550e 4y ago
    - ttoinou 4y ago
      Thats what the parent said
      - paulmd 4y ago
        meta: HN constantly feels the need to be maximally pendantic even when what they're trying to say was already covered, and it's just very tedious and leads to an exhausting style of posting to try and prevent it. that's really why the "be maximally generous in your interpretation of a comment" rule exists, and the pedantry is against the spirit of that requirement, yet it's super super common, and I think a lot of people feel it's "part of the site's culture" - but if it is, that's not really a good thing, it's against the rules. Just waiting for the pedantic "ackshuyally the rule says PLEASE" reply.
eis 4y ago
M1 and M2 actually are not produced on the exact same process node. M1 is N5 and M2 is N5P, an optimized version of N5. I think Kuo might be misinterpreting the statement from TSMC regarding revenue from N3. The key is that they said it wont "substantially" contribute to revenue until 2023. Of course processors like M2 Pro/Max/Ultra wont generate the same amount of numbers like something more high volume like an iPhone and in the grand scheme of things can't represent a substantial contribution to TSMC revenue. The fact is TSMC said they'll start N3 HVM in September. So they are producing something and we know Apple is expected to be the first customer for this node. It's too early for the A17 so either it's the M2 Pro/Max/Ultra or something new like the VR headset chip. Can someone see another possibility? Apple still btw has to replace the Mac Pro with an Apple Silicon based model and their own deadline (2 years from first M1) is running out. It could make sense that they want to bring this one with a "bang" and claim the performance crown just to stick it to Intel :)
- xiphias2 4y ago
  They don't ,,have to'' be ready in 2 years. The M2 numbers from the N5P process were underwhelming, I wouldn't replace my M1 MacBook pro without seeing significantly superior performance / watt numbers, and happy to wait for the N3 process to be in production whatever it takes.
  - eis 4y ago
    Of course nothing forces them to be ready within 2 years but alas, that's what Apple said they'd do. I agree the M2 numbers were not amazing. I guess after the big M1 shock it's hard to follow up with something that comes even close. You can't get similar gains like the transition from x86 to an integrated arm based SOC brought, doubly so when there's no substantial process node improvement (N5 -> N5P is a minor optimization). In the end they mostly bought better performance with a bigger die and increased power consumption. I'm pretty convinced they'll need N3 for the next jump but even that wont be on the level of the Intel -> M1 step. The revolution has happened, now it's all about evolution. BTW if Apple wants to increase the prices of the Pro macbooks like they did with the M2 Air due to inflation then they better justify it with some good gains. The big changes in terms of hardware redesign already happened last time.
linuxhansl 4y ago
This is cool! At the same time, not being part of the Apple ecosystem, should I be worried about the closed nature of this. I have been using Linux for over two decades now, and Intel seems to be falling behind. (I do realize Linux runs on the M1. But it's a mostly hobby projects, the GPU is not well supported, and the M1/M2 will never(?) be available with open H/W.)
- eropple 4y ago
  There are other ARM providers, and personally I expect to see some of them ramping up significantly in the next couple years. Qualcomm's taking another shot, for example. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-18/qualcomm-is-plotting-a-return-to-server-market-with-new-chip https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-18/qualcomm-...
- xref 4y ago
  What would be your concern? M1/M2 is just arm which Linux has run on for decades?
  - heavyset_go 4y ago
    Linux support is about much more than instruction set support. Most ARM chips are shipped on SoCs which can take a lot of work to get Linux running on, and even then it might not run well.
  - 3pm 4y ago
    I think the concern is there is currently no 'IBM-compatible'-like hardware ecosystem around ARM. Raspberry Pi is closest, but nothing mainstream yet. And it looks like RISC-V will have a better chance than ARM.
    - snvzz 4y ago
      You're right. RISC-V barely has any end-user visible deployment yet. Despite that, it has strong platform standarization (OS-A Profile, RVA22 and standardized boot process through SBI, UEFI specs). This is all just in time for VisionFive2, just announced. I suspect it will ship in large amounts.
brundolf 4y ago
I'm curious what actually unifies the "MX" for some X. There are different chips in the series, and apparently they can even be on different-sized processes and keep the name Anybody know more detail?
- spullara 4y ago
  Marketing?
  - brundolf 4y ago
    It's possible it's nothing but marketing, but I didn't want to assume that without knowing what I'm talking about
  - wilg 4y ago
    That's what the M is for
- gpderetta 4y ago
  Microarchitecture.
- kergonath 4y ago
  M1 uses the same Firestorm and Icestorm cores as the A14 SoC. M2 uses the same Avalanche and Blizzard cores as the A15. So one can argue about the importance of the differences, but they are clearly two different generations. M1 pro, max, and ultra still have the same cores, just a different number of them. One would assume that M2 derivatives will be the same: different combinations of the same cores.
Kalanos 4y ago
excellent. i've been waiting for an M2 macbook pro
- ArcMex 4y ago
  That already exists. https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/13-inch https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/13-inch Did you mean an M2 Pro MacBook Pro?
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    It's so weird that they made another one, keeping the old design and touch bar alive. I wonder whether they do focus group testing and found that some significant minority likes them enough for it to be worth it.
    - Kalanos 4y ago
      womp womp. hard dislike
derbOac 4y ago
I know I'm being irrational about this, but for some reason this makes me lean toward getting an M1 Air or 13-inch Pro rather than an M2: it's like with the M2 performance gains are being squeezed out of the same (or similar enough) M1 process rather than changing the process significantly, at the cost of efficiency.
- alberth 4y ago
  You'd definitely save $200 since base M1 Air is $999 vs M2 Air being $1199.
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    They're also available used and a lot cheaper now. I'm plenty happy with mine and don't plan to switch any time soon. Yeah, the M2 Air looks a bit nicer, but it's more of a Pro-follow up with its boxy design and ... eh, the M1 Air is totally fine in all aspects I can spontaneously come up with. It's a really good device and the laptop I might recommend for years to come. It getting cheaper and cheaper will only increase the value you'll get.
- K7PJP 4y ago
  I almost did this, but the return of MagSafe (which frees up a USB port) and the display improvements were worth it to me. Oh, how I’ve missed MagSafe.
  - derbOac 4y ago
    Yeah the things you mention definitely enter into the equation.
- wilg 4y ago
  The hardware is much nicer on the M2 Air though.
  - chaxor 4y ago
    An important note is that the MacBook pro M2 vs M2 Air appear to be essentially the same hardware with the same price - but the MacBook pro does have a slightly larger battery. And it is quite incredible. I've been very impressed that i can work all day on an M2 MacBook pro on vim - for several days - with only one charge. The battery life is incredible. About to switch to Asahi Linux, so I hope it stays, but I am almost certain the battery life will be better than any x86 computer running Linux I could've gotten.
deleted 4y ago
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bonney_io 4y ago
So it seems like the M2 is really an "M1+" or "M1X", whereas the M2 Pro/Max/Ultra are really the second-generation Apple Silicon. That's fine, in my opinion. M1 is still an amazing chip, and if that product class (MacBook Air, entry iMac, etc.) gets even marginal yearly revisions, that's still better than life was on Intel.
- top_sigrid 4y ago
  Actually I get a different impression. Although the M2 tests have been impressive nonetheless (the M2 being based on the A15 and not on the A14 makes it more the an M1X imho), the issues around throttling and thermals with the MacBook Air make it seem to me, that the M2 was actually designed to be on the 3nm node - which then seems to have been delayed by TSMC. That the rest of the M2* line will presumably be made with the 3nm process boosts this impression for me. I was planning on getting the redesigned M2 Air, but with the above in mind (which is just speculation) it got me thinking again.
keepquestioning 4y ago
Has this analyst ever been correct?
lxe 4y ago
According to Wikipedia: > The term "3 nanometer" has no relation to any actual physical feature (such as gate length, metal pitch or gate pitch) of the transistors. I thought it at least maps to something physical. But it's just a marketing term.
- wongarsu 4y ago
  It used to be the gate length. But eventually improvements were made that didn't neatly map to the gate length but still doubled transistor density, so they transitioned to just dividing the number by sqrt(2) each generation (since chips are two-dimensional making everything sqrt(2) smaller in each dimension increases density by factor 2). Until 14nm the relation to transistor density was kind of true, all 14nm processes have similar density that is roughly double that of 22nm, which is roughly double that of 32nm. But now even that's meaningless and all they're doing is steps of factor sqrt(2) out of habit.
narrator 4y ago
I wonder how many people have to collaborate to get a 3nm semiconductor out the door. TSMC has 65,000 employees. ASML has 32,000 employees and 5000 suppliers. The complexity of it all is unimaginable!
etempleton 4y ago
It is possible it is for a Mac Pro, but that would be just for bragging rights to have a halo processor that beats everything AMD and Intel have in terms of power and single threaded and multithreaded workloads. It all depends on how good the yields are on 3nm. As an aside, I am not sure who a Mac Pro computer would be for at this stage. I wonder if they would design it to be able to slide into a rack mount. How many Mac workloads need a computer more powerful than a Mac Studio at this point? It was once you needed a pro machine to properly use photoshop or illustrator and now a MacBook Air is fine most of the time and a Mac Studio is perfectly capable of doing even the most demanding video editing. The only thing that comes to mind would be for render workloads for animation houses and for video game developers. Will the chassis design be tailored for that? Will it be a good value for for those types of customers who are not going to care what it looks like because it is going to be in a rack or in a corner?
- yreg 4y ago
  It's for Mr. John Siracusa. Plus people who want a modular computer, but I don't know how modular would an M* Mac Pro be.
- perardi 4y ago
  I’m entirely unclear if an ARM-based Mac Pro would look anything like the old Mac Pro. Well. Actually. If it would look anything like the late lamented cheese grater Mac Pro. I worry it would be a lot more like the trashcan Mac Pro. Because for a long time, the Mac Pro has meant expandability. Lots of RAM slots. PCIe slots. Drive bays. Big-ass GPUs. Something adaptable to pro work flows, namely audio and video capture and production. Is anything like that possible with the Apple Silicon system? I think it’s extremely unlikely they’d support GPUs. And I really don’t think they will support old-fashioned RAM—they seem to be all-in on directly-on-die memory. And PCIe cards? Shrug? No idea, because we’ve not seen anything like that yet.
  - etempleton 4y ago
    Is it just a case and logic board and then you are plugging SOC modules onto? Would Apple ever sell such a thing? Better question, would Apple ever sell the individual modules? On one hand I don't think this will ever make them money, on the other, it might just be a halo product that is worth the cost in good press. A shiny expensive thing that Apple can say, "look, see, we have the fastest personal computer you can buy."
yieldcrv 4y ago
hey anyone at Apple or able to influence there: my use cases for machines expand when they can address 128gb RAM and above. everything between 32gb and 96gb is the same use cases, for me. nice to haves but doesn't dramatically change anything. just in case anyone needed to know
- pram 4y ago
  Thanks I will let Tim know.
didip 4y ago
What will the industry do when it reached 1nm?
- dannyw 4y ago
  9A, 8A, 7A, etc. 1nm = 10A
- grzm 4y ago
  The nm in the process names is more marketing than a reference to something physical. For example: > The term "5 nanometer" has no relation to any actual physical feature (such as gate length, metal pitch or gate pitch) of the transistors. According to the projections contained in the 2021 update of the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems published by IEEE Standards Association Industry Connection, a 5 nm node is expected to have a contacted gate pitch of 51 nanometers and a tightest metal pitch of 30 nanometers. However, in real world commercial practice, "5 nm" is used primarily as a marketing term by individual microchip manufacturers to refer to a new, improved generation of silicon semiconductor chips in terms of increased transistor density (i.e. a higher degree of miniaturization), increased speed and reduced power consumption compared to the previous 7 nm process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nm_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nm_process
- Smoosh 4y ago
  There's plenty of room at the bottom. (pm would be next).
jeswin 4y ago
The heading is just blatant speculation. It was written before Ming-Chi Kuo tweeted about M2 Pro being on enhanced 5nm. Once he said that, the article was updated to include his tweet - adding an element of uncertainty. Ming-Chi Kuo is a credible news source; cultofmac is an aggregator - they don't care if they're wrong and they optimize for eyeballs. This post reeks of fanboy-ish excitement; there's nothing to see here.
watersb 4y ago
"HVM" = High-Volume Manufacturing Used in the comments here... I had to think for a minute to get it. HVM is full production status, as opposed to early risk or testing.

285 points by nateb2022 4y ago

Can anyone speculate what will happen to Apple if for any reason TSM abruptly stops supplying chips? Will their revenue just drop by 80%?

gjsman-1000 4y ago
You mean TSMC. Well, they would be seriously hurt. However, does that matter when almost every tech company (including Qualcomm, MediaTek, AMD, Apple, ARM, Broadcom, Marvell, Nvidia, Intel, so forth) would also be harmed? TSMC going down is basically the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) of tech companies. Kind of a single point of failure. Intel would probably weather it best but would still be hurt because they need TSMC for some products. Plus, well, in the event of TSMC's destruction (most likely by a Chinese invasion), Intel might raise prices considerably or even stop sale to consumers especially as their chips would now have major strategic value for government operations. NVIDIA might also survive by reviving older products which can be manufactured by Samsung in Korea, but same situation about the strategic value there, and getting chips from Korea to US might be difficult in such a conflict.
- nomel 4y ago
  > TSMC going down is basically the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) of tech companies. This is why it's appropriately called the "Silicon Shield", within Taiwan: https://semiwiki.com/china/314669-the-evolution-of-taiwans-silicon-shield/ https://semiwiki.com/china/314669-the-evolution-of-taiwans-s...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- earthscienceman 4y ago
  Does anyone have any resources that explain the historical reason(s) TSMC became what it is? How did the world's most important hardware manufacturer manage to get constructed on a geopolitical pinchpoint?
  - kochb 4y ago
    This podcast covers most of the important points: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/tsmc https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/tsmc
wilsonnb3 4y ago
Everybody except Intel and Samsung is screwed if TSMC stops making chips. Apple (and the rest of the mobile industry) would try to move to using Samsung's fabs and Intel would go back to being the undisputed king on desktops, laptops, and servers. I think TSMC has like 2-3 times the fab capacity that Samsung does right now for modern chips, so there would be a huge chip shortage. Apple's $200 billion cash pile would come in handy when trying to buy fab capacity from Samsung so they might come out ahead of less cash-rich competitors. There would be a significant hit to processor performance. Samsung fabbed the recent Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which has comparable single core performance to the iPhone 7's A10 fusion chip.
- Tostino 4y ago
  The performance of that core is not necessarily all dependent on the node... Apple have been lauded for their designs. Samsung / arm, not so much.
  - kergonath 4y ago
    > Samsung / arm, not so much. I don’t think that is fair. ARM and Apple have very different objectives. Apple does not care if its CPU design division makes any money and they can get away with very large SoCs that rely on cutting edge manufacturing. ARM on the other hand needs to sell designs that manufacturers can use to make money. So there is a tendency to go towards simpler designs that are easier to manufacture. So sure, Apple has an edge in performance. But they don’t have the same business model or optimise for the same things.
- florakel 4y ago
  >There would be a significant hit to processor performance. You are probably right. Look at the gains Qualcomm saw by migrating from Samsung to TSMC: https://www.anandtech.com/show/17395/qualcomm-announces-snapdragon-8-gen-1-moving-to-tsmc-for-more-speed-lower-power https://www.anandtech.com/show/17395/qualcomm-announces-snap...
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
beautifulfreak 4y ago
TSMC announced its new Phoenix Arizona fab would begin mass production in the first quarter of 2024.
- bogomipz 4y ago
  Similarly Intel just announced a new partnership to accomplish similar. Also in Arizon: https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2022-08-23/intel-brookfield-to-invest-up-to-30-billion-in-arizona-chip-factories https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2022-08-23/...
- eis 4y ago
  By that time it'll be far from bleeding edge. The Taiwan fab will be close to N2 while the Arizona fab will be able to produce 5nm generation chips, that'll be 4-5 year old tech then.
- joenathanone 4y ago
  That is funny we are literally about to run out of water over here in AZ.
zaroth 4y ago
If WW3 goes hot beyond the regional proxies, we all lose pretty hard. A new iPhone 14 or Mac M2 will be a pipe that we all chuckle about how we used to care about such things.
- kyriakos 4y ago
  If the economic situation we are all into at the moment is because of Ukraine war, I think is ww3 happens slower iPhones will be the least of our concerns.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ytdytvhxgydvhh 4y ago
Way down the road I hope Tim Cook writes a memoir. I’m curious as to his unvarnished thoughts about doing business in (and being so reliant on) Taiwan and China. I’m sure he can’t publicly express some of those thoughts without unnecessarily adding risk for Apple but he must have lots of interesting opinions about things like being reliant on TSMC vs trying to build their own fabs, etc.
- bredren 4y ago
  Based on how Jobs life and legacy are discussed at Apple, I doubt cook will ever speak frankly about matters that affect Apple. Kara Swisher is interviewing him and Laureen Powell Jobs soon. I expect that interview to continue to focus on only the best possible characterizations of Steve.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  I recall Tim Cook speaking about it actually. He says, Apple is there not because it's cheap but because they actually have unmatched engineering capacity. He was talking about how much quicker everything can get moving and how much accessible engineering talent they have. It makes sense, after all there are much poorer countries in the world but you can't expect for Afghanistan for example be like "okay okay Apple, we will do the chips and the phone at %25 discount". In fact, you can't expect even EU or USA to start easily doing that because the manufacturing know how is long gone with the de-industrialisation of the west. Sure, there's some talent and capacity left but its not anywhere near the scale of what exists in Taiwan and China.
mlindner 4y ago
For what reason would TSMC abruptly stop supplying chips short of war? There's nothing other than war that would cause it. And if there's a war, Apple's profits are the least of problems.
- Bud 4y ago
  Climate change impacts or global pandemics could also significantly impact TSMC's operations. Or, Chinese actions that are somewhat short of full-on war. Also relevant here: TSMC is building a chip fab in the US.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  > For what reason would TSMC abruptly stop supplying chips short of war? Earthquakes would be top of my list of things that would cause problems.
  - kaushikc 4y ago
    The facilities are made to mitigate and reduce damage due to earthquakes. https://esg.tsmc.com/en/update/governance/caseStudy/1/index.html#:~:text=TSMC%20improved%20seismic%20resistance%20of,1.5%20times%20for%20Nonstructural%20components https://esg.tsmc.com/en/update/governance/caseStudy/1/index.....
- rowanG077 4y ago
  Meteor, Large tsunami, Earth quake, Solar flare, extremely infectious disease that isn't as weak as Covid-19. There are so many natural disasters that could cripple or outright destroy TSMC production facilities.
  - mlindner 4y ago
    Meteor and Solar Flare that are big enough to cause problems would be global problems. Large tsunami is possible, but I doubt they built these things right next to the ocean, and as the other poster says they're built to withstand large earthquakes. Infectious diseases are another global problem.
jkestner 4y ago
Repeat of the car market? I'm going to make a bunch of money off the old computers collecting dust here, and Apple's going to have to unlock support for new OSes on them, making all its money on services.
novok 4y ago
If TSMC poofed out of existence because of a few bombs from china or a freak super natural disaster, global GDP would drop significantly and quickly. One of the biggest SPOF that I'm worried about in the world.

vondro 4y ago

So we'll see at least 1-2 years of Apple Silicon being at least one node ahead of competition. I am curious for how long will be Apple able to pull this lead off, and what the perf/watt will look like when (if?) AMD has node parity with Apple in the near future. Or when perhaps Intel uses TSMC as well, and the same process node.

r00fus 4y ago
I think this was Apple's game for a LONG time. They have led in mobile chips to the point where they are sometimes 2 years ahead of the competition. They do this using their monopsony power (they will buy all the fab capacity at TSMC and/or Samsung, and well before competition is aiming to do so either).
- klelatti 4y ago
  IIRC they were using TSMC before TSMC had a material process lead and supported them (and moved away from Samsung) with big contracts and a long term commitment. Hardly surprising that they have first go a new process. Not a risk less bet but one that has paid off.
  - kergonath 4y ago
    Exactly. You cannot look at that as if they decided 2 years ago to just buy all the capacity. Their relationship with TSMC goes back way further than that, and there have been several ups and downs along the way.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  They absolutely use their power (aka money) to buy fab capacity but they are also responsible for a ton of investment in fabs (new fabs and new nodes). Because of that investment they get first dibs and the new node. In the end it's up to the the reader to decide if this is a net positive for the industry (would we be moving as fast without Apple's investment? Even accounting for the delay in getting fab time until after Apple gets a taste).
- 4y ago

adtac 4y ago

Is the node process size comparable across architectures?

remlov 4y ago
No. At these nodes it's all marketing.
muricula 4y ago
Process and architecture are mostly independent. Node process is determined by the physical manufacturing. Architecture is determined by the design templated on during manufacturing. You could make an arm core on an intel process (which I think even happens in some of their testing phases). So yes.
cpurdy 4y ago
No, not really. The "3nm" in the "3nm process" is not a measure of anything in particular, and even if it is a measure, the measure may or may not be in the neighborhood of 3nm. Several years ago, fabs started naming each next-gen process with a smaller number of nanometers, even if the process size didn't change. It's just marketing now.

georgelyon 4y ago

If M2 Pro is similar to M1 Pro (two M1s duct-taped together with very fancy duct tape), this is interesting because usually chips need to be significantly reworked for a newer process and this implies an M2 core complex will be printable both at 5nm and 3nm. It would be interesting to know how much of this is fabrication becoming more standardized and how much is Apple's core designs being flexible. If this is the latter, then Apple has a significant advantage beyond just saturating the most recent process node.

skavi 4y ago
The M1 Pro was not two M1s duct taped together. Their core configurations do not share the same proportions (8+2 vs 4+4). You may be thinking of the GPUs? Each step in M1 -> M1 Pro -> M1 Max -> M1 Ultra represents a doubling of GPU cores. Or you may be thinking of the M1 Max and Ultra. The Ultra is nearly just two Maxes. Regarding your point about flexibility, it’s hardly unprecedented for the same core to be used on different processes. Apple has at times contracted Samsung and TSMC for the same SoC. Qualcomm just recently ported their flagship SoC from Samsung to TSMC. Even Intel backported Sunny Cove to 14nm. And of course there’s ARM.
- wolf550e 4y ago
  - ttoinou 4y ago
    Thats what the parent said
    - paulmd 4y ago
      meta: HN constantly feels the need to be maximally pendantic even when what they're trying to say was already covered, and it's just very tedious and leads to an exhausting style of posting to try and prevent it. that's really why the "be maximally generous in your interpretation of a comment" rule exists, and the pedantry is against the spirit of that requirement, yet it's super super common, and I think a lot of people feel it's "part of the site's culture" - but if it is, that's not really a good thing, it's against the rules. Just waiting for the pedantic "ackshuyally the rule says PLEASE" reply.

eis 4y ago

M1 and M2 actually are not produced on the exact same process node. M1 is N5 and M2 is N5P, an optimized version of N5. I think Kuo might be misinterpreting the statement from TSMC regarding revenue from N3. The key is that they said it wont "substantially" contribute to revenue until 2023. Of course processors like M2 Pro/Max/Ultra wont generate the same amount of numbers like something more high volume like an iPhone and in the grand scheme of things can't represent a substantial contribution to TSMC revenue. The fact is TSMC said they'll start N3 HVM in September. So they are producing something and we know Apple is expected to be the first customer for this node. It's too early for the A17 so either it's the M2 Pro/Max/Ultra or something new like the VR headset chip. Can someone see another possibility? Apple still btw has to replace the Mac Pro with an Apple Silicon based model and their own deadline (2 years from first M1) is running out. It could make sense that they want to bring this one with a "bang" and claim the performance crown just to stick it to Intel :)

xiphias2 4y ago
They don't ,,have to'' be ready in 2 years. The M2 numbers from the N5P process were underwhelming, I wouldn't replace my M1 MacBook pro without seeing significantly superior performance / watt numbers, and happy to wait for the N3 process to be in production whatever it takes.
- eis 4y ago
  Of course nothing forces them to be ready within 2 years but alas, that's what Apple said they'd do. I agree the M2 numbers were not amazing. I guess after the big M1 shock it's hard to follow up with something that comes even close. You can't get similar gains like the transition from x86 to an integrated arm based SOC brought, doubly so when there's no substantial process node improvement (N5 -> N5P is a minor optimization). In the end they mostly bought better performance with a bigger die and increased power consumption. I'm pretty convinced they'll need N3 for the next jump but even that wont be on the level of the Intel -> M1 step. The revolution has happened, now it's all about evolution. BTW if Apple wants to increase the prices of the Pro macbooks like they did with the M2 Air due to inflation then they better justify it with some good gains. The big changes in terms of hardware redesign already happened last time.

linuxhansl 4y ago

This is cool! At the same time, not being part of the Apple ecosystem, should I be worried about the closed nature of this. I have been using Linux for over two decades now, and Intel seems to be falling behind. (I do realize Linux runs on the M1. But it's a mostly hobby projects, the GPU is not well supported, and the M1/M2 will never(?) be available with open H/W.)

eropple 4y ago
There are other ARM providers, and personally I expect to see some of them ramping up significantly in the next couple years. Qualcomm's taking another shot, for example. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-18/qualcomm-is-plotting-a-return-to-server-market-with-new-chip https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-18/qualcomm-...
xref 4y ago
What would be your concern? M1/M2 is just arm which Linux has run on for decades?
- heavyset_go 4y ago
  Linux support is about much more than instruction set support. Most ARM chips are shipped on SoCs which can take a lot of work to get Linux running on, and even then it might not run well.
- 3pm 4y ago
  I think the concern is there is currently no 'IBM-compatible'-like hardware ecosystem around ARM. Raspberry Pi is closest, but nothing mainstream yet. And it looks like RISC-V will have a better chance than ARM.
  - snvzz 4y ago
    You're right. RISC-V barely has any end-user visible deployment yet. Despite that, it has strong platform standarization (OS-A Profile, RVA22 and standardized boot process through SBI, UEFI specs). This is all just in time for VisionFive2, just announced. I suspect it will ship in large amounts.

brundolf 4y ago

I'm curious what actually unifies the "MX" for some X. There are different chips in the series, and apparently they can even be on different-sized processes and keep the name Anybody know more detail?

spullara 4y ago
Marketing?
- brundolf 4y ago
  It's possible it's nothing but marketing, but I didn't want to assume that without knowing what I'm talking about
- wilg 4y ago
  That's what the M is for
gpderetta 4y ago
Microarchitecture.
kergonath 4y ago
M1 uses the same Firestorm and Icestorm cores as the A14 SoC. M2 uses the same Avalanche and Blizzard cores as the A15. So one can argue about the importance of the differences, but they are clearly two different generations. M1 pro, max, and ultra still have the same cores, just a different number of them. One would assume that M2 derivatives will be the same: different combinations of the same cores.

Kalanos 4y ago

excellent. i've been waiting for an M2 macbook pro

ArcMex 4y ago
That already exists. https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/13-inch https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/13-inch Did you mean an M2 Pro MacBook Pro?
- solarkraft 4y ago
  It's so weird that they made another one, keeping the old design and touch bar alive. I wonder whether they do focus group testing and found that some significant minority likes them enough for it to be worth it.
  - Kalanos 4y ago
    womp womp. hard dislike

derbOac 4y ago

I know I'm being irrational about this, but for some reason this makes me lean toward getting an M1 Air or 13-inch Pro rather than an M2: it's like with the M2 performance gains are being squeezed out of the same (or similar enough) M1 process rather than changing the process significantly, at the cost of efficiency.

alberth 4y ago
You'd definitely save $200 since base M1 Air is $999 vs M2 Air being $1199.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  They're also available used and a lot cheaper now. I'm plenty happy with mine and don't plan to switch any time soon. Yeah, the M2 Air looks a bit nicer, but it's more of a Pro-follow up with its boxy design and ... eh, the M1 Air is totally fine in all aspects I can spontaneously come up with. It's a really good device and the laptop I might recommend for years to come. It getting cheaper and cheaper will only increase the value you'll get.
K7PJP 4y ago
I almost did this, but the return of MagSafe (which frees up a USB port) and the display improvements were worth it to me. Oh, how I’ve missed MagSafe.
- derbOac 4y ago
  Yeah the things you mention definitely enter into the equation.
wilg 4y ago
The hardware is much nicer on the M2 Air though.
- chaxor 4y ago
  An important note is that the MacBook pro M2 vs M2 Air appear to be essentially the same hardware with the same price - but the MacBook pro does have a slightly larger battery. And it is quite incredible. I've been very impressed that i can work all day on an M2 MacBook pro on vim - for several days - with only one charge. The battery life is incredible. About to switch to Asahi Linux, so I hope it stays, but I am almost certain the battery life will be better than any x86 computer running Linux I could've gotten.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bonney_io 4y ago

So it seems like the M2 is really an "M1+" or "M1X", whereas the M2 Pro/Max/Ultra are really the second-generation Apple Silicon. That's fine, in my opinion. M1 is still an amazing chip, and if that product class (MacBook Air, entry iMac, etc.) gets even marginal yearly revisions, that's still better than life was on Intel.

top_sigrid 4y ago
Actually I get a different impression. Although the M2 tests have been impressive nonetheless (the M2 being based on the A15 and not on the A14 makes it more the an M1X imho), the issues around throttling and thermals with the MacBook Air make it seem to me, that the M2 was actually designed to be on the 3nm node - which then seems to have been delayed by TSMC. That the rest of the M2* line will presumably be made with the 3nm process boosts this impression for me. I was planning on getting the redesigned M2 Air, but with the above in mind (which is just speculation) it got me thinking again.

keepquestioning 4y ago

Has this analyst ever been correct?

lxe 4y ago

According to Wikipedia: > The term "3 nanometer" has no relation to any actual physical feature (such as gate length, metal pitch or gate pitch) of the transistors. I thought it at least maps to something physical. But it's just a marketing term.

wongarsu 4y ago
It used to be the gate length. But eventually improvements were made that didn't neatly map to the gate length but still doubled transistor density, so they transitioned to just dividing the number by sqrt(2) each generation (since chips are two-dimensional making everything sqrt(2) smaller in each dimension increases density by factor 2). Until 14nm the relation to transistor density was kind of true, all 14nm processes have similar density that is roughly double that of 22nm, which is roughly double that of 32nm. But now even that's meaningless and all they're doing is steps of factor sqrt(2) out of habit.

narrator 4y ago

I wonder how many people have to collaborate to get a 3nm semiconductor out the door. TSMC has 65,000 employees. ASML has 32,000 employees and 5000 suppliers. The complexity of it all is unimaginable!

etempleton 4y ago

It is possible it is for a Mac Pro, but that would be just for bragging rights to have a halo processor that beats everything AMD and Intel have in terms of power and single threaded and multithreaded workloads. It all depends on how good the yields are on 3nm. As an aside, I am not sure who a Mac Pro computer would be for at this stage. I wonder if they would design it to be able to slide into a rack mount. How many Mac workloads need a computer more powerful than a Mac Studio at this point? It was once you needed a pro machine to properly use photoshop or illustrator and now a MacBook Air is fine most of the time and a Mac Studio is perfectly capable of doing even the most demanding video editing. The only thing that comes to mind would be for render workloads for animation houses and for video game developers. Will the chassis design be tailored for that? Will it be a good value for for those types of customers who are not going to care what it looks like because it is going to be in a rack or in a corner?

yreg 4y ago
It's for Mr. John Siracusa. Plus people who want a modular computer, but I don't know how modular would an M* Mac Pro be.
perardi 4y ago
I’m entirely unclear if an ARM-based Mac Pro would look anything like the old Mac Pro. Well. Actually. If it would look anything like the late lamented cheese grater Mac Pro. I worry it would be a lot more like the trashcan Mac Pro. Because for a long time, the Mac Pro has meant expandability. Lots of RAM slots. PCIe slots. Drive bays. Big-ass GPUs. Something adaptable to pro work flows, namely audio and video capture and production. Is anything like that possible with the Apple Silicon system? I think it’s extremely unlikely they’d support GPUs. And I really don’t think they will support old-fashioned RAM—they seem to be all-in on directly-on-die memory. And PCIe cards? Shrug? No idea, because we’ve not seen anything like that yet.
- etempleton 4y ago
  Is it just a case and logic board and then you are plugging SOC modules onto? Would Apple ever sell such a thing? Better question, would Apple ever sell the individual modules? On one hand I don't think this will ever make them money, on the other, it might just be a halo product that is worth the cost in good press. A shiny expensive thing that Apple can say, "look, see, we have the fastest personal computer you can buy."

yieldcrv 4y ago

hey anyone at Apple or able to influence there: my use cases for machines expand when they can address 128gb RAM and above. everything between 32gb and 96gb is the same use cases, for me. nice to haves but doesn't dramatically change anything. just in case anyone needed to know

pram 4y ago
Thanks I will let Tim know.

didip 4y ago

What will the industry do when it reached 1nm?

dannyw 4y ago
9A, 8A, 7A, etc. 1nm = 10A
grzm 4y ago
The nm in the process names is more marketing than a reference to something physical. For example: > The term "5 nanometer" has no relation to any actual physical feature (such as gate length, metal pitch or gate pitch) of the transistors. According to the projections contained in the 2021 update of the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems published by IEEE Standards Association Industry Connection, a 5 nm node is expected to have a contacted gate pitch of 51 nanometers and a tightest metal pitch of 30 nanometers. However, in real world commercial practice, "5 nm" is used primarily as a marketing term by individual microchip manufacturers to refer to a new, improved generation of silicon semiconductor chips in terms of increased transistor density (i.e. a higher degree of miniaturization), increased speed and reduced power consumption compared to the previous 7 nm process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nm_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nm_process
Smoosh 4y ago
There's plenty of room at the bottom. (pm would be next).

jeswin 4y ago

The heading is just blatant speculation. It was written before Ming-Chi Kuo tweeted about M2 Pro being on enhanced 5nm. Once he said that, the article was updated to include his tweet - adding an element of uncertainty. Ming-Chi Kuo is a credible news source; cultofmac is an aggregator - they don't care if they're wrong and they optimize for eyeballs. This post reeks of fanboy-ish excitement; there's nothing to see here.

watersb 4y ago

"HVM" = High-Volume Manufacturing Used in the comments here... I had to think for a minute to get it. HVM is full production status, as opposed to early risk or testing.