The M6 chipset for the redesigned OLED MacBook Pro has been reported to arrive sooner than expected, suggesting that Apple may not treat it to TSMC’s best manufacturing process yet, the 2nm N2P node. Instead, a new report states that the company will stick with the N2 variant that’s expected to be utilized for the A20 and A20 Pro, with the technological gap likely being filled with Apple’s vast knowledge of chipset design. There are small differences between TSMC’s N2 and N2P nodes, and it is possible that the M6 will not transition to the newer process to save on wafer costs and improve availability when it finds a place in future Macs.

Fresh details posted on China Times state that TSMC will begin mass production of its 2nm N2P node in the second half of 2026. Among the multitude of customers that will transition to the next-generation lithography, only Qualcomm and MediaTek appear to move to the updated node, likely because their flagship chipsets could be tuned to operate at a higher CPU frequency, giving them an edge over the A20 and A20 Pro. Given that there’s a negligible 5 percent performance uplift at the same power consumption when comparing the N2 and N2P processes, Apple would probably want to focus more on architectural improvements.

For instance, the A19 Pro’s efficiency cores have been treated to an architectural revamp, as they can deliver up to a 29 percent performance improvement at virtually no power draw. Qualcomm and MediaTek have yet to attain the level of experience that Apple has in fine-tuning CPU cores, which is why SoCs like the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 might beat the A19 Pro in multi-core performance, but they need to consume a ton of power to achieve this feat. The M6 could be treated similarly, and since Apple has been reported to have secured more than half of TSMC’s initial 2nm N2 capacity, it has little need to jump to the N2P variant.

Also, if we look at the M5, Apple managed to make its latest base SoC only slightly slower than the workstation-class M1 Ultra, all while retaining the same number of cores and configuration as the M4, highlighting its prowess in boosting its chipset’s capabilities after just one generation.

By: DocMemory
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