Supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claimed Apple is planning to roll out the new family of M5 Chipset in 2025, following its plan to start mass production during the same year. It is said that the TSMC advanced 3nm N3P semiconductor node is to be used for developing the M5 chipsets. The new node is said to offer better performance and efficiency than the old N3E node used with M4 chipsets.
Standard, Pro, Max, and Ultra varieties for the M5 chip family would be employed. Mass production for standard M5 will begin in the first half of 2025. The start for the production of Pro and Max versions is expected in the last half of the year itself, and Ultra comes with a time frame estimated to be around 2026.
Kuo indicates that for M5 Pro and Ultra chips, the design has become significantly different. It reports that Apple has adopted a “server-grade” System-on-Integrated-Chips-molding-Horizontal (SoIC-mH) design. The new system accommodates multiple circuits horizontally in the same mold. This approach can shrink the chip size up to 30% to 50%. The improved thermal management will reduce throttling, one of the major areas for improvement in performance-intensive applications.
Also, the CPU and GPU may be separated in M5 chips; this design deviates from the normal integrated CPU/GPU approach. This will optimize every component of a device toward the specific work that the component would do to achieve its task, boosting performance, specifically on AI.
The move to TSMC’s N3P node is also expected to yield a 5% performance gain while reducing power consumption by 5-10% compared to the current M4 chipsets. Such improvements represent Apple’s constant pursuit of improving chip design and efficiency.
The M5 family is going to set a new benchmark for the industry, which further cements Apple’s place as a leader in leading-edge semiconductor technology.
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