At the recent Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple unveiled the M2 processor and the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air powered by this chip.

Apple's M2 uses a second-generation 5nm process and is equipped with over 20 billion transistors, a 25% increase in number over the M1 chip, providing over 100GB/s of unified memory bandwidth, in addition to an 8-core CPU + 10-core GPU, with performance improvements of 18% and 35% respectively compared to its predecessor.

Previously, to replace the Intel chip in Mac products, Apple launched the M1 self-research computer chip, and now Apple has released the M2 chip, which is Apple's first upgrade in the field of self-research computer chips, but the M1 chip uses the first generation of 5nm process, and the M2 uses the second generation of 5nm process, but it is still in the 5nm category, so it will more or less make the outside world The idea of "not yet finished".

Apple M series chip when to enter the process below 5nm? Before Apple's official announcement, chip design giant Qualcomm has come out to "shout".

Qualcomm wants to lead the PC CPU market and beat Apple's M2 chip

The latest survey by TrendForce shows that Qualcomm is the world's largest IC design company, and in the first quarter of this year, with the help of cell phones, RF front-end division, and IoT and automotive division, Qualcomm's revenue reached $9.55 billion, an annual increase of 52%, and firmly ranked first in the world.

At the same time, Qualcomm is also actively promoting the PC market. Recently, Qualcomm's CEO Anmon said that the company's goal is to establish a leadership position in the PC CPU market and to beat Apple's M2 chip.

Ming-Chi Kuo, the industry's "god of revelations," revealed that Qualcomm will mass-produce a chip codenamed Hamoa in the third quarter of next year, using TSMC's 4nm process to compete with Apple's M2.

In the PC market, although Qualcomm has long offered Snapdragon processor products using the Arm architecture, but less influential than products using the x86 architecture. When Apple's M series chips, which also use the Arm architecture, were introduced and achieved a good market response, Qualcomm saw the prospect of Arm architecture chips in the PC market.

In 2021 Qualcomm acquired the chip company NUVIA for $1.4 billion, the company is committed to the development of high-performance chips Arm architecture, the founder Gerard Williams III worked in Apple for nine years, is one of Apple's most important chip designers, the other two co-founders John Bruno and Manu Gulati were also Apple's semiconductor executives.

Industry speculation is that the upcoming Hamoa chip will be unveiled by Qualcomm's Nuvia team, which will help Qualcomm better compete with Apple in the PC chip market.

However, Apple's M series chips are also being upgraded, and the industry recently broke the news that Apple will launch the M2 Pro chip by the end of this year, using a 3nm chip, the CPU core will increase to 12 cores, while the GPU will also be more powerful. In addition, Apple is also preparing the M3 chip, also using 3nm process, is expected to flow in the third quarter of next year.

Position is threatened, Intel how to fight back?

The current processor market is dominated by X86 and Arm two major architectures, including x86 for complex instruction set architecture, dominant in the desktop and server processor market, Intel is the x86 architecture dominant; Arm architecture for streamlined instruction set architecture, in Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung, Huawei, Nvidia and other support, the dominant position in the mobile processor market.

The launch of Apple's M-series chips has activated the Arm architecture desktop processor market, coupled with the future strength of Qualcomm Nuvia, Intel's desktop processor market share may be affected to some extent.

At the same time, the Arm architecture is also growing in the server market. According to a survey conducted by Tiburon Consulting, Arm architecture server penetration is estimated to reach 22% by 2025, and cloud data centers will be the first to adopt it.

Intel previously missed the Arm-led mobile ecosystem era, now facing the Arm architecture in the PC and server field "threat", Intel began to fight back, joining the streamlined instruction set architecture RISC-V camp.

Tom's Hardware reports that Intel and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center have jointly said that they will invest up to 400 million euros to establish a lab to develop RISC-V-based processors to support high-performance computing (HPC) systems, as well as specialized chips for artificial intelligence and self-driving cars.

Although RISC-V is not as popular as X86 and Arm architecture, but RISC-V is a free open-source instruction set architecture, has gained the support of many high-tech companies, in addition to Intel, Huawei, ZTE, Ziguang Zhanrui, Alibaba and other companies are also layout RISC-V.

With Intel and other chip companies joining the RISC-V camp, the future RISC-V ecology is expected to grow rapidly and continue to compete with X86 and Arm architecture.