January 2022 • Macworld 5However, there’s more to the story.
The Information’s report also states
that the next-gen chips will have two
dies, resulting in more cores than
the M1 series. TSMC has started trial
production of these chips, which
should be the M2 Pro and M2 Max
Macs coming in late 2022 or 2023.
The changes get more interesting
with the third generation of Apple
silicon. According to The Information,
the chips are code-named Ibiza,
Lobos and Palma, and Apple and
TSMC plan to implement a 3nm
process with up to four dies and 40
CPU cores. That would represent a
massive leap over even the M1 Pro,
which has 10 CPU cores on a single die.
The Information says that
production on
these chips won’t
start until 2023,
which probably
means its
introduction into
Apple’s product
line-up will go
into 2024. Lobos
and Palma may
make their debut
in pro Macs such
as the second-
generation
14- and 16in
MacBook Pros, with a lower-end
chip (Ibiza) likely ending up in the
MacBook Air and iPad Pro.
The M1 series still has plenty of
life in it. The report states that a
twin-die M1 Max is planning to be
used as the first Apple processor in
the company’s high-end Mac Pro.
According to separate reports, the
new Mac Pro could feature a design
that’s smaller than the current one,
with the higher-end Mac Pro sticking
with the latest Intel processors. Intel
recently revealed its new 10nm Alder
Lake desktop CPUs, though there
have been no reports on whether this
chip will make its way into (or can even
be used in) a Mac Pro, which currently
uses Intel’s higher-end Xeon chips.While Apple makes plans to move to a 3nm process, Intel just
released its first 10nm desktop chip.