New packaging technologies have been employed by TSMC to further improve the attributes of chipsets that have been mass produced on its first-generation 3nm process and newer. The Taiwanese giant’s Small Outline Integrated Circuit Molding-Horizontal packaging, or SoIC-MH, aims to improve thermal and electrical performance, leading to a better ‘performance per watt’ rating from SoCs. Unfortunately, while it is exciting to hear Apple has reportedly commenced mass production of its M5, this packaging might not be applied to the latter and could debut in the M5 Pro instead.
The lack of efficiency improvements by jumping from 3nm ‘N3E’ and 3nm ‘N3P’ could be why Apple could transition to SoIC-MH for the M5 Pro
It is not clearly defined why there will be a massive difference between the M5 and the M5 Pro, but ETNews does not mention anywhere in its report that the base Apple Silicon will share the same packaging technology as the more powerful variant. As for why the technology giant could introduce some differentiation between the two chipsets, the obvious reason will be cost. However, we have noticed that TSMC’s 3nm N3E and N3P technologies are said to feature a measly 5-10 percent efficiency improvement.
This limitation means that Apple might be forced to retain the CPU and GPU core count on the M5 Pro while only focusing on slightly bumping up the clock speeds. This approach might not result in a major difference between the M5 Pro and M4 Pro, resulting in poor sales of whichever machine the Apple Silicon is found in. With TSMC’s SoIC-MH, which also employs vertically stacked chips, resulting in additional circuit layers and leading to better performance, the M5 Pro could be a force to be reckoned with.
The same packaging could be adopted by the M5 Max and M5 Ultra, though the report does not specifically mention these two chipsets getting treated to SoIC-MH. While we hope to see this technology in action, it is important to note that since nothing is verified at this time, treat all of this information with a pinch of salt, and we will be back with more updates.
News Source: ETNews
