APPLE SILICON
The Mac is Poised to Take the iPhone’s Performance Crown
It looks like TSMC’s 3nm process is headed to Apple’s M-Series Mac.
The Road to the M1 Macs
Ever since Johny Srouji led the development of the Apple A4, the first Apple-designed system on a chip, the iPhone has delivered impressive annual performance gains, quickly becoming the fastest smartphone in the world. Then something even more remarkable happened, with the release of the A10 Fusion chip in 2016, the iPhone was suddenly faster than any MacBook Air ever made. By 2019, the iPhone 11’s A13 Bionic Soc delivered faster single-core performance than every Intel-based Mac in Apple’s lineup.
And just as long as there have been A-Series chips, Intel has been worried that Apple would eventually place its own processors in Macs. While they planned to fight off this threat by innovating with their own CPUs, Intel failed to execute, continuing to deliver 14nm processors since 2014. Meanwhile, Apple, whose 2014 A8 was manufactured on a 20nm process, saw its processors improve to 16nm in 2015, 10nm in 2017, 7nm in 2018, and 5nm in 2020.
After years of rumors and speculation, Apple finally announced the Mac’s transition to its own silicon at this year’s WWDC (Apple Worldwide Developers Conference). That announcement was followed up by the November 10 release of the new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini, powered by the M1 SoC, Apple’s first chip designed specifically for the Mac.
The Mac Catches Up to the iPhone
While the M1 is a new chip, it’s based on the same 5nm design, with the same “Firestorm” and “Icestorm” microarchitecture, as the A14 Bionic chip found in the iPhone. Because the M1 has a larger transistor count, and increased thermal and power budgets, it is able to have more cores and run at a greater maximum frequency. In absolute terms, this gives M1 Macs a performance edge over the iPhone, with the A14 Bionic being 93% as fast as the M1 in single-core performance. However, considering the apples-to-oranges nature of comparing a pocket-able 6 oz device to computers that start at 2.8 lbs, and the capabilities expected of them, their performance can be considered to be roughly on par.
The Mac is Poised to Take the Performance Crown
The performance parity between iPhones and Apple silicon Macs won’t last long. As reported by UDN, Apple has contracted with TSMC to produce chips using its 3nm process:
As TSMC (2330) sprinted for 3nm deployment, it was reported that Apple was the first to contract 3nm initial production capacity, mainly producing its own M series processors for the new generation of Mac notebooks and iPad products. TSMC plans to complete certification and trial production of 3nm next year, and mass production in 2022. Now it is “become a sensation before it shows up.” Apple has taken the lead in capacity, allowing TSMC’s advanced manufacturing process to once again win over Samsung.
TSMC has never commented on single customer messages. According to the supply chain, TSMC’s 3nm and 4nm trial production preparations are progressing smoothly. Among them, 3nm is actively moving towards the goal of an annual production capacity of 600,000 pieces and a converted monthly production capacity of more than 50,000 pieces.
According to the industry, due to the huge investment in 3nm, from the terminal point of view, at least 300 million chips must be used for about two years to pay back. Apple’s ecosystem is gradually developing into the introduction of all self-designed chips, so the number of adoption is rapidly increasing.
UDN’s report seems to indicate that the first Apple products to ship with 3nm chips will be its high-end Macs (iMac Pro and Mac Pro), as the sales volumes of the other likely candidates (MacBooks, iPhones, iPads) exceed the initial production capacity. With Apple continuing to enhance the features of its Mac-specific silicon, and new chipsets launching in Macs ahead of iPhones, the Mac lineup will soon reclaim its place as one of the highest performance computer product lines in the world.
