In a bid to seize the AI PC market opportunity, Apple is set to debut its new iPad Pro on the 7th, featuring its in-house M4 chip. With the momentum of the M4 chip’s strong debut, Apple reportedly plans to revamp its entire Mac lineup. The initial batch of M4 Macs is estimated to hit the market gradually from late this year to early next year.

It’s reported by a report from Commercial Times that Apple’s M4 chip adopts TSMC’s N3E process, aligning with Apple’s plans for a major performance upgrade for Mac, which is expected to boost TSMC’s operations.

Notably, per Wccftech’s previous report, it is rumored that the N3E process is also used for producing products like the A18 Pro, the upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, and the MediaTek Dimensity 9400, among other major clients’ products.

Apple held an online launch event in Taiwan on May 7th at 10 p.m. Per industry sources cited by the same report, besides introducing accessories like iPad Pro, iPad Air, and Apple Pencil, the event will mark the debut of the M4 self-developed chip, unveiling the computational capabilities of Apple’s first AI tablet.

With major computer brands and chip manufacturers competing to release AI PCs, such as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus, and Intel introducing Core Ultra into various laptop brands, it is imperative for Apple to upgrade the performance of its products. Therefore, the strategy of highlighting AI performance through the M4 chip comes as no surprise.

According to a report by Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, the M4 chip will be integrated across Apple’s entire Mac product line. The first batch of M4 Macs is said to be expected to debut as early as the end of this year, including new iMac models, standard 14-inch MacBook Pro, high-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini. New products for 2025 will also be released gradually, such as updates to the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air in the spring, updates to the Mac Studio in mid-year, and finally updates to the Mac Pro.

The report from Commercial Times has claimed that the M4 chip will come in three versions: Donan, Brava, and Hidra. The Donan variant is intended for entry-level MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and low-end Mac mini models. The Brava version is expected to be used in high-end MacBook Pro and Mac mini models, while the Hidra version will be integrated into desktop Mac Pro computers.

Apple’s plan to introduce the M4 chip into its Mac series is expected to boost the revenue of TSMC’s 3-nanometer family. The report has indicated that the M4 chip will still be manufactured using TSMC’s 3-nanometer process, but with enhancements to the neural processing engine (NPU), providing AI capabilities to Apple’s product line. Additionally, industry sources cited by the same report have revealed that the M4 will utilize TSMC’s N3E process, an improvement over the previous N3B process used in the M3 series chips.

Meanwhile, TSMC continues to advance its existing advanced process node optimization versions. Among them, the N3E variant of the 3-nanometer family, which entered mass production in the fourth quarter of last year, will be followed by N3P and N3X. Currently, N3E is highly likely to be featured in the new generation iPad Pro.

Source: TSMC

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AMD benefited from AI demand last quarter (January to March), with revenue of USD 5.47 billion, surpassing Wall Street expectations and turning a profit compared to the same period last year. However, this quarter’s fiscal forecast and market outlook are not as expected.

AMD achieved a net profit of USD 120 million last quarter, with an adjusted EPS of USD 0.62, surpassing Wall Street’s expected USD 0.61. AMD expects revenue for this quarter to be between USD 5.4 billion and USD 6 billion, with a midpoint of USD 5.7 billion, a 6% increase from the same period last year but slightly below Wall Street’s expected USD 5.73 billion.

After enduring a downturn in the semiconductor industry, AMD finally returned to profitability last quarter, largely due to strong sales of its MI300 series AI chips, which drove revenue in the data center division to grow by 80% year-on-year to USD 2.3 billion.

As per a report from the Wall Street Journal, AMD CEO Lisa Su stated that since the launch of the latest MI300X chip at the end of last year, sales have surpassed $1 billion, with major customers including Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, among other tech giants.

In January, Lisa Su had forecasted that AMD’s AI chip revenue for this year could reach USD 3.5 billion, which was recently revised upwards to USD 4 billion. The AMD MI300 series chips are seen as direct competitors to NVIDIA’s H100 chips. However, NVIDIA announced its new generation AI chip architecture, Blackwell, in March this year, forcing AMD to accelerate its pace. Lisa Su stated that AMD is already developing the next generation of AI chips.

AMD’s client division, which sells PC chips, has also benefited from the AI wave, with revenue increasing by 85% year-on-year to USD 1.4 billion last quarter, once again proving the recovery and growth of the global PC market. AMD’s chips for PCs are capable of executing AI computations locally, targeting the increasingly expanding demand for AI-enabled PCs.

Regarding the applications of AI PCs, Su previously stated in an interview with Sina that she found communication, productivity, and creativity particularly exciting. Many applications are still in their early stages, but she expects to see more developments in the coming years.

However, AMD’s businesses outside of AI chips are facing increasing challenges. Revenue from the gaming console chip division declined by 48% year-on-year to USD 920 million last quarter, falling short of Wall Street’s expectations of USD 970 million. Additionally, the revenue from the embedded chip division, established after AMD’s acquisition of Xilinx in 2022, also decreased by 46% year-on-year to USD 850 million last quarter, similarly below Wall Street’s expectations of USD 940 million.

TrendForce previously issued an analysis in a press release, indicating that the AI PC market is propelled by two key drivers: Firstly, demand for terminal applications, mainly dominated by Microsoft through its Windows OS and Office suite, is a significant factor. Microsoft is poised to integrate Copilot into the next generation of Windows, making Copilot a fundamental requirement for AI PCs.

Secondly, Intel, as a leading CPU manufacturer, is advocating for AI PCs that combine CPU, GPU, and NPU architectures to enable a variety of terminal AI applications.

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Per a report from TechNews, during Intel’s earnings call last week, CEO Pat Gelsinger stated that the supply of Core Ultra processors in the second quarter is limited due to insufficient wafer-level assembly capacity.

Gelsinger mentioned in the meeting that with the increasing demand for AI PCs and customers continually adding processor orders to Intel due to Windows update cycles, Intel’s AI PC CPU shipments for 2024 are expected to surpass the originally set target of 40 million units. In response, Intel is actively ramping up production to meet customer demand, with the current supply bottleneck primarily concentrated in the backend wafer-level assembly.

Wafer-level assembly is a technology where packaging is done on wafers before they are cut into chips, widely utilized in processors like Meteor Lake and future Core Ultra processors. However, in the face of overwhelming demand, this production bottleneck has led Intel’s Consumer Computing Division to anticipate second-quarter revenue to be roughly equivalent to that of the first quarter, around USD 7.5 billion.

To address this issue, Intel is actively enhancing its wafer-level assembly capacity to meet the growing orders. It is expected that the current tight situation will be alleviated in the second half of 2024, facilitating further revenue growth for the Consumer Computing Division.

As per previous report by Economic Daily News, Intel has advanced packaging capacity in Oregon and New Mexico in the United States and is actively expanding its advanced packaging capabilities in its new facility in Penang. It is noteworthy that Intel once stated its intention to offer customers the option to only use its advanced packaging solutions, expected to provide customers with greater production flexibility.

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(Photo credit: Intel)

Qualcomm is actively entering the AI PC market with a new processor unveiled on April 25th, reportedly featuring Arm architecture and produced on a 4nm process, igniting a new battle in non-x86 architecture AI PC processors.

Industry sources cited by the report from Economic Daily News have anticipated that TSMC is behind this new chip from Qualcomm. Following this trend, major players like Apple, NVIDIA, and MediaTek will continue to release Arm-based AI PC processors, all likely manufactured by TSMC.

Since 2018, Qualcomm has introduced a series of chips like Snapdragon 8cx, 7c, 8c platforms, 8cx Gen 2, and 8cx Gen 3, targeting always-connected and mobile PC domains. After years of preparation, they’re capitalizing on the AI wave, with last year’s launch of Snapdragon X Elite, produced on TSMC’s 4nm process. Yesterday, they further expanded with Snapdragon X Plus, aiming for a larger share of the AI PC market.

Qualcomm claims both Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus feature customized integrated Oryon CPUs, outperforming competitors with 37% higher CPU performance and a 54% reduction in power consumption. During last year’s Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm introduced its in-house Oryon CPU, claiming that certain CPU performance metrics surpassed those of Intel and Apple chips.

Qualcomm previously mentioned that part of the Snapdragon X Elite’s GPU performance also surpasses competitors like AMD. Both Snapdragon X chips feature Hexagon neural network processors (NPU) capable of 45 trillion operations per second (TOPS), promising unprecedented performance, energy efficiency, and on-device AI capabilities for more Windows PCs.

Qualcomm emphasizes that the NPU’s performance supports new AI-optimized applications and features, including OBS Studio real-time captions, leveraging on-device Whisper functionality to instantly translate 100 spoken languages into 100 languages for live broadcasts.

According to Qualcomm’s official website, the Snapdragon X Elite features 12 cores with a maximum multi-thread frequency of 3.8 GHz, while the Snapdragon X Plus has 10 cores with a maximum frequency of 3.4 GHz.

Industry sources cited by the same report from Economic Daily News believe the Snapdragon X Plus will help Qualcomm capture the PC mainstream market. Qualcomm stated that OEMs are expected to launch PCs equipped with Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X Elite starting from mid this year.

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(Photo credit: Qualcomm)

According to reports from global media outlets like MacRumors and Wccftech on April 23rd, Apple is said to be developing its first in-house AI processor for PCs, the M4 chip, and is also working on a self-developed AI server processor using TSMC’s 3-nanometer process, with plans for mass production expected in the second half of 2025.

As per Wccftech’s report, based on the production schedule, Apple’s AI server processor might utilize TSMC’s “N3E” process. It is rumored that the N3E process is also used for producing products like the A18 Pro, the upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, and the MediaTek Dimensity 9400, among other major clients’ products.

Regarding this matter, per a report from Economic Daily News citing sources, it has indicated that Apple’s development of AI server processors will bring new momentum to TSMC’s advanced process orders. Subsequently, assembly orders for related AI servers are expected to be undertaken by Foxconn, becoming two major benefactors of Apple’s aggressive push into AI among Taiwan’s manufacturers.

The source referenced previous reports suggesting that Apple has secured the initial capacity for TSMC’s 3-nanometer process for at least a year. According to TSMC’s financial reports, the revenue contribution from its largest customer exceeded NTD 500 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach NTD 546.5 billion in 2023, setting a new record. TSMC’s largest customer is, anticipated by the report from Economic Daily News, to be Apple.

The same report from Economic Daily News continues by quoting industry sources who revealed that Apple has conducted extensive AI functionality testing, which is highly confidential. Apple and Foxconn have reportedly been engaged in many projects and ongoing tests.

With Apple’s full-scale push into the AI field and plans to introduce AI features in this year’s new iPhone models, there are also rumors of Apple possibly launching its own developed AI chip.

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(Photo credit: Apple)