Evolution, especially in the technology sector, is moving faster than ever. If we are still waiting for the first orders of the new Mac mini M2 and MacBook Pro M2, we know that Apple must already develop the M3. What happens is that from M2 to M3 there will be a very substantial change in power and performance. We are not talking about more nuclei, we are talking about the arrival of three nanometers.
What also happens is that these M3 they will arrive much sooner than expectedWell, DigiTimes puts them in the second half of this year, a few months away. Some M3s will arrive with a new MacBook Air that promises, among other things, more battery life than we’ve ever seen in a laptop.
A few simple 3nm will make a big difference
When we talk about 5nm or 3nm, we are actually talking about the chip lithographic printing processes. If the printer has better quality and better resolution, in a very simplified way, we can print smaller transistors – which we can imagine as lowercase letters – without blurring, joining or overlapping. The result is that a transistor goes from measuring 5nm to 3nm.
Without going into the marketing aspect of these measures, reducing the size of the components has several effects. The first is that efficiency improves, as well as speed, since electrical signals have to travel less. The second is that we can reduce electricity consumption because the road is shorter. The third is that by reducing consumption and the distance travelled, less heat is generated. In other words, we have a faster and more efficient chip without changing anything other than its size.
This is the big leap that the M3 will make with the arrival of this MacBook Air in the second half of 2023. We might see them at WWDC or a dedicated event this fall, for all we know right now. Some computers to which Apple may well decide to give enormous autonomy by reducing the size of the chips or to make them much more powerful by maintaining consumption and increasing the specifications of the chips while maintaining their size.
If we move forward a bit in time, Ming-Chi Kuo talks to us already 2024 and the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros ship with M3 Pro and M3 Max. Some computers will go into production in the first half of next year.
What Apple achieves with its own silicon is truly remarkable. Building on the work they’ve done since the first A-series chips in the iPhone 4, they’ve come up with a scalability system that makes it relatively easy to balance power and performance from a very well-designed base core. Now, with a better lithography process, all your jobs will perform even better, because we will benefit from even more powerful chips consuming even less.
