Guomingpei, a well-known Apple analyst, said that the a16 chip equipped with the iPhone 14 Pro Series this year may be a small upgrade of the iPhone 13 series A15 bionic. The upgrading range of M-series chips this year will not be very large, and major upgrades will occur in 2023.
Earlier this week, the whistleblower "shrimpapplepro" revealed that the a16 chip will be manufactured by the same process as the A15 bionic, and the performance of the new M-series chip will not be greatly improved, so more power will be accumulated on the next generation Mac. Today, Mr. guomingpei confirmed these rumors about a16 and M2 chips.
Mr. Guo said that since TSMC's significantly better N3 and n4p manufacturing processes will not be used for mass production until 2023, this year Apple The chip process used may be n5p and N4.
Mr. Guo believes that N4 has no obvious advantage over n5p, which is currently used to manufacture iphone 13 series and ipad The technology of A15 bionic chip in mini, so it is reported that Apple plans to stick to using n5p on a16 chip.
Mr. Guo thinks that the improvement of a16 chip compared with a15 chip is "limited" in terms of performance and efficiency. Apple still chose to name it "a16" for more marketing purposes.
In contrast, apple is in the next generation of 14/16 inch macbook See more advantages when the "M2" chip is first introduced in the pro model. Although apple can call the chip in the redesigned MacBook Air "M2" to promote sales, although it has only slightly upgraded the existing M1, it may choose to keep the name "M2" in order to make a greater upgrade on the basis of the previous generation of products.
Shrimpapplepro previously claimed that Apple was developing the "final SOC of M1 series", which included an updated kernel. M1, M1 pro, M1 Max and M1 ultra chips use energy-saving "icestorm" cores and high-performance "firestorm" cores - just like A14 bionic chips. It is said that Apple's final "M1" variant will be based on A15 bionics, with "blizzard" energy-saving core and "avalanche" high-performance core.
Mr. Guo said that the 2022 MacBook Air will retain the M1 chip instead of being equipped with "M2", so the rumors of shrimpapplepro may be related to the new version of the entry-level "M1". Providing a mid generation iteration device with a standard "M1" chip can help Apple win time before releasing a Mac equipped with an "M2" chip.
According to this information, "the real" M2 "chip may not appear until 2023. The chips in upcoming devices (such as" iPhone 14 Pro "and the redesigned" MacBook Air ") are very similar to A15. In addition, it is rumored that the standard iPhone 14 model will retain the same A15 chip as the iPhone 13 series. Therefore, 2022 may be a year for apple chips to carry out smaller scale and iterative upgrading. Due to the availability of more advanced manufacturing processes, there will be greater upgrading in 2023.