Apple is preparing the next Mac chips to outperform high-end PCs

Apple Inc. plans to introduce a series of new Mac processors as early as 2021 that aim to outperform the fastest Intel Corp.

Chip engineers at the Cupertino, Calif.-Based tech giant are working on several successors to the custom M1 chip, Apple’s first Mac main processor that debuted in November. If they meet expectations, they will dramatically outperform the latest machines running Intel chips, according to people familiar with the matter who have asked not to be named because the plans are not yet public. Intel shares slipped 2.9% in New York on Monday after the news broke. Apple shares rose 1.3% at 9:46 a.m.

Apple’s M1 chip has been unveiled in a new entry-level MacBook Pro laptop, refreshed Mac mini desktop, and the entire MacBook Air lineup. The company’s next series of chips, slated for release in the spring and later in the fall, are intended to be placed on upgraded versions of the MacBook Pro, both of iMac’s desktops and entry-level and high-end, and later a new Mac. Pro Workstation, people say.

The roadmap indicates that Apple is confident that it can differentiate its products through its own engineering and is taking decisive steps to design Intel components from its devices. Apple’s next two chip lines are also set to be more ambitious than some industry watchers expected next year. The company said it plans to complete Intel’s transition to its own silicon in 2022.

While Intel derives less than 10% of its revenue from supplying Apple with Mac chips, the rest of its PC business is likely to face turbulence if the iPhone maker is able to supply clearly more computers. efficient. This could accelerate a reshuffle in an industry that has long depended on Intel’s pace of innovation. For Apple, the move eliminates that dependency, deepens its distinction from the rest of the PC market, and gives it the opportunity to add to its small but growing share in PCs.

An Apple spokesperson declined to comment. The development and production of chips is complex, with changes being common throughout the development process. Apple could still choose to withhold those chips in favor of lower versions for next year’s Macs, people said, but the plans point to Apple’s broad ambitions nonetheless.

Apple’s Mac chips, like those in its iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, use technology licensed from Arm Ltd., the chip design company whose plans underpin much of the mobile industry and that Nvidia Corp. is in the process of acquiring. Apple designs the chips and subcontracts their production to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which has taken the lead in chip manufacturing from Intel.

The current M1 chip inherits a mobile-centric design built around four high-performance processing cores to speed up tasks like video editing and four power-saving cores that can handle less intensive tasks like browsing. Web. For its next-generation chip targeting MacBook Pro and iMac models, Apple is working on designs with up to 16 power cores and four efficiency cores, people said.

While this component is in development, Apple might choose to release variants with just eight or 12 high-performance cores activated first depending on production, they said. Chipmakers are often forced to offer certain models with lower specifications than they originally expected due to issues that arise during manufacturing.

For high-end desktops, slated for later in 2021 and a new half-size Mac Pro slated for 2022, Apple is testing a chip design with up to 32 high-performance cores.

With current Intel systems, Apple’s high-end laptops offer a maximum of eight cores, a high-end iMac Pro is available with up to 18, and the more expensive Mac Pro desktop features as much as a system. with 28 cores. Although architecturally different, Apple’s and Intel’s chips rely on segmenting workloads into smaller, serialized jobs that multiple processing cores can work on at once.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which has gained market share at the expense of Intel, offers standard desktop parts with up to 16 cores, some of its high-end gaming PC chips up to 64 cores.

While the M1 silicon has been well received, the Macs that use it are Apple’s low-end systems with less memory and fewer ports. The company still sells high-end Intel versions of some of the lines that have received M1 updates. The M1 chip is a variant of a new iPad processor intended to be included in a new iPad Pro arriving next year.

Apple engineers are also developing more ambitious graphics processors. Current M1 processors come with a custom Apple graphics engine available in 7 or 8 core versions. For its future high-end laptops and mid-range desktops, Apple is testing 16 and 32-core graphics components.

For later in 2021 or potentially 2022, Apple is working on more expensive graphics upgrades with 64 and 128 dedicated cores for its high-end machines, people said. These graphics chips are said to be several times faster than the current graphics modules that Apple uses from Nvidia and AMD in its Intel hardware.