Apple's high-end M5 chip variants might not use an SoC design
Apple's M-series of chips is about to get a radical new design according to a report posted online by TF International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The usually reliable Kuo says that the M5 series chip will be produced by TSMC using its third-generation N3P 3nm process node. Kuo says that mass production of the M5 will start during the first half of next year. During the second half of 2025, the M5 Pro/Max will be mass produced and the M5 Ultra will undergo mass production in 2026.
The big news is that according to Kuo, the M5 Pro, M5 Max, and M5 Ultra will use TSMC's new packaging for those chips which is known as SoIC-mH (System-on-Integrated-Chips-Molding-Horizontal). This packaging process will improve thermals (always important to keep temps down when it comes to semiconductors) and production yields. Want to know how important production yields are? Ask Samsung Foundry whose miserable production yields have probably cost it some business.
More interesting is the design change for the high-end M5 series silicon that involves the use of separate CPU (Central Processing Unit) and GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) chips. Application processors used on smartphones use the Systems-on-a-Chip (SoC) design that integrates the CPU, GPU, and other components into a single chip. With the SoIC-mH packaging improving the thermals of the component, a chip can run at maximum speed and power for a longer time before it needs to be throttled to keep the heat down.
On the other hand, using the SoC design reduces the size of the integrated chip. A single SoC chip also allows for faster communications between chip components leading to lower latency.
Kuo's post states that Apple will use the high-end M5 chips to power the Private Cloud Compute (PCC) servers used by the tech giant for Apple Intelligence. Kuo says that the high-end M5 chips are better suited for AI applications than the current chips used to power the PCC servers. The M2 Ultra is currently deployed on most of Apple's PCC servers. A report last month said that Apple was talking with Foxconn to build new AI servers in Taiwan which would feature the M4 series chipset.
TSMC has other customers besides Apple using the SoIC packaging (System-on-Integrated-Chips). While Apple is the foundry's largest SoIC customer, AMD is second followed by AWS and Qualcomm.
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