Apple M5 Chip Order from TSMC

Craig: we're talking about the apple m five and, you know, their order from tsmc and whether this is gonna be a two nanometer process or it's gonna use a standard process. what's going on here?

Jon: tell me that the standard process apparently now is three nanometers. how long ago was it that, the standard process was seven nanometers or even ten or even fifteen nanometers?

Craig: not long. it's the world is changing really fast.

Jon: yeah. it's crazy. so yeah. so, so based on the article, like, it's saying that, apparently, apple is foregoing two nanometers to go with tsmc, who has a three nanometer process because of yields. yeah. and so what they're saying is that it's essential for producing powerful and energy efficient chips. but, again, two nanometers, i feel is the smaller you go, the closer the transistors are, all that sort of stuff. it's more efficient, but i'm guessing they're not getting the yield that they're getting or that they expect from the two nanometer process.

Craig: yeah. they're definitely not getting it, and it's not quite working the way they want. go ahead.

Jon: yeah. no. so, so i guess they're going with tsmc. and tsmc has been a partner with apple for quite a while. so, i'm not surprising. but, with, with this with the m five chip, they're leveraging system on integrated chips, soic technology, and, apparently, they've already placed the order.

Craig: yeah. and it's supposed to be in on the second half of twenty twenty five.

Jon: so

Craig: we're gonna see it in late twenty twenty five, max, potentially ipad pros, but we're not sure.

Jon: yeah. so i have an m one max. and i know, like, we're at, what, m four now, i think? did m four come out?

Craig: yeah. the m four is out now.

Jon: yeah. the m four is out. and what do you have on yours?

Craig: i have the m three macbook air.

Jon: yeah. i, so i'm five generations. you're two generations back. i don't know. i'm hoping that this is gonna be a big leap. i don't know if it's time for me to upgrade yet. last time i upgraded, i had, i had a twenty twelve macbook pro up until the m one max came out, and i still use it. i'm actually using it right now, because we got the intel chip, and i can actually install ubuntu and all that sort of stuff. but, anyways, i digress. it's, it's interesting that so are there political implications with this? do you know, craig, as far as them going with tsmc as opposed to another semiconductor manufacturer?

Craig: i didn't look into any political implications. tsmc has been a partner of theirs for a long time, so i didn't think there was any, anything unusual around that.

Jon: yeah. and they have a facility in arizona. right? yep. yeah. yeah. so at least apple's adhering to what trump is threatening, and they're they're kind of i don't know if this was a political move. i don't think so. i think this is more of a technology move.

Craig: yeah. like, the order's already been done. like, was, i don't think this has anything to do with pulling up politics.

Jon: no. the only thing is that, and and not surprising, but there's gonna be higher costs because they're us based manufacturing. so, this could lead to a more expensive macbook pros if that's even possible. actually, it is. i don't know if you ever remember people, trying to configure their pro mac pros, and you could get up to, like, a hundred thousand dollars or something like that.

Craig: yeah. i'm sure. but, you know, we'll just see. like, it's so it's now gonna be next year. so late, twenty twenty five, we'll see probably macbook pros and maybe ipad pros, but maybe they'll wait for the spring depending on how much, how demand is with the n five. so we'll have to see. it looks like they're they're doing some interesting stuff, to make it faster and better, but i'm curious to see you know, right now, it's just, hey. we're doing this, this, and this. like, what does it say they're doing? apple's ditched to two millimeter, nanometer, for the m five chip. they're using three d chip stacking method to allow chips to improve their thermal management and minimize electrical leakage compared to the traditional two d design.

Jon: and

Craig: the new chips allegedly entered a small scale trial production back in july. so as long as there's no, technical issues, involved, the supplier will move to the next phase.

Jon: yeah. so this is interesting. i'm curious to know. this is something i don't think you'd have the answer to, but i'm curious to know how, how much progress they make from year to year compared to how much progress intel used to make. because i think intel used to, like, leaps and bounds with each year. right? or maybe i'm wrong. i it used

Craig: to be. like, i think we're we're falling shy of moore's law for lack of if you wanna use that as the calculus about leaps and bounds ahead. but, you know, they're just throwing the next processor has sixty graphics processors and this many this and this many that. it's like, oh, great. it's following this, three nanometer process, but it's a bigger chip or it's this. is that because we've got more stuff on it? it's interesting to see. now apple's planning on using this, m five chip to power its ai server infrastructure, to both to bolster its premium apple intelligence features as it's trying to replace, chat gtp integration with its own stuff in, two twenty twenty six, i think. so they're trying gonna use this to power their own. so it's interesting to see where this is going as they start to, convert everything to these m five. so i'm looking forward to seeing what they do in the process there because if they're gonna throw it in their data centers, it's probably really optimized for thermal and power efficiencies.

Jon: for sure. yeah. absolutely.

Craig: so, you know, we'll do a deep dive on this when we get closer to this.

Jon: i think we'll get more. yeah?

Craig: okay. yeah. as apple pushes the envelope with chips like the m five, are we just one step closer to devices that can read our minds or predict our thoughts as, you know, we got elon musk and neuralink as these processors get, more and more. i will be looking at the m five and looking at my m one mac mini and thinking maybe it's time to replace it. so, my m three macbook air, i don't think i'll be upgrading anytime soon, but i might be upgrading my desktop, which is currently an m one mac mini with eight gigs of ram.

Jon: yeah.