Apple’s already mass-producing its M5 chip while we wait for the M4 Macbook Airs!

February 9, 2025

Apple’s latest M4 silicon brought a decent jump in power and efficiency over its predecessor but the full lineup is still not out yet! Although M4-powered Macbook Airs are right on the horizon, they aren’t officially announced and here we are talking about the M5 already. Rumors say that the base M5 chip has already entered mass production and could ship as soon as the end of this year. Let’s see what that’s all about!

Apple M5 Chip

According to a recent report from ET News, Apple has already started ‘packing’ the upcoming M5 chip since January. In chip making, ‘packing’ takes place after manufacturing to protect the silicon from external factors like moisture or heat. It’s like the final stage before the chips are ready to ship in products so that’s to say that Apple has already started mass-producing the M5. All while we are still waiting for the M4 upgrade on our beloved products like the Macbook Airs.

Architecture Changes

The M5 will be based on TSMC’s advanced 3nm process (N3P) which is to bring good efficiency gains (along with a slight bump in performance) over the current N3E node. Estimates predict 5-10% better performance per watt and around a 5% boost in horsepower over M4.

The family will follow the norm with a base M5, an M5 Pro, an M5 Max, and hopefully the M5 Ultra. But there’s a slight twist, the higher-end models (all except the base M5) will make use of TSMC’s SoIC-mH technology where the CPU, GPU, and memory are manufactured on their own respective die and then later integrated into a single chip.

The ‘mh’ part in SoIC-mH refers to the horizontal molding process after which they will be stacked on top of each other. The report mentions that vertically stacking silicon will further improve heat control and performance.

Also Read:

Likewise, TSMC will also be using a new laser technology for the cutting of these ‘M5’ chips to minimize damage and contamination. This will likely result in higher yields and improved quality.

Apple M5 Chip Lineup and Timeline

Diverting from the monolithic design in the current Apple Silicon would allow the company to experiment with advanced process nodes for important components like the CPU and GPU while keeping others like the memory and I/O controllers the same. Intel and AMD already do this with their processors to improve yields and reduce costs. But it’s somewhat sad that the base M5 chip will be left out of this party. You can expect the first M5 product to be the iPad Pro (8th Gen) which might debut in late 2025.

Following the iPad Pro, we are likely going to get new Macbook Pros (late 2025) and then Macbook Airs in early 2026.