Apple Inc (AAPL)

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Apple’s A16 chip said to stick to 5nm process; M2 will make leap to 3nm
Friday, May 27, 2022 11:11 am

According to the leaker known as “ShrimpApplePro” on Twitter reveals Apple’s chip plans for its upcoming A16 and M2 chips, as well as the “final” variant in the M1 family of chips.

Hartley Charlton for MacRumors:

The A16 will reportedly be based on TSMC’s 5nm process, just like the A14, A15, and M1 chips. Previous reports have been unclear about whether the A16 will be fabricated with TSMC’s more advanced 4nm process, with an ambiguous report from DigiTimes claiming that Apple plans to use TSMC’s 4nm N4P process – but N4P is in fact an enhanced, third-generation version of the 5nm process. On the other hand, ShrimpApplePro said that the A16 will use TSMC’s N5P process. This suggests that the A16 may be less of a substantial upgrade than previously thought.[color=red][/color]

According to the information, the A16’s improvements will instead come from minor enhancements to the CPU, GPU, and memory. Mirroring a report from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, ShrimpApplePro said that the A16 will specifically feature LPDDR 5 memory. LPDDR 5 memory is up to one and a half times faster and up to 30 percent more power-efficient than the LPDDR 4X memory paired with the A15 chip in the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro.

The M2 chip will apparently be the first Apple chip to make the jump to TSMC’s 3nm process, skipping 4nm entirely. The M2 is believed to be Apple’s first custom ARMv9 processor.

MacDailyNews Note: Much more in the full article here.
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/05/27/apple-chip-plans-suggest-a16-to-stick-with-5nm/

https://macdailynews.com/2022/05/27/apples-a16-chip-said-to-stick-to-5nm-process-m2-will-make-leap-to-3nm/