Apple has promised that it will be shipping at least one MacBook with Apple Silicon before the end of the year and, according to a report from DigiTimes, the company is likely on target given that Apple Silicon chipsets will enter production soon (via Ubergizmo).
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Digitimes sources indicate that the production should be roughly 5,000 to 6,000 wafers per month. These are presumably 12-inch wafers but we don’t know what the yield is yet for Apple’s custom 5nm chips, so we can’t be entirely certain of the volume of MacBooks with Apple Silicon. It is safe to assume it would be upwards of 1.5 million per month. While Apple gave an overview of its plans for the transition to Apple Silicon when it made the announcement at WWDC in June, the company has remained fairly silent on the matter ever since. Leaked benchmarks from the developer test kits have certainly instilled a fair amount of confidence that Apple has the performance side of things covered, but a lot of questions remain. Rumors suggest that the pricing could be Apple’s lowest ever for a laptop, which is another point in its favor. However, software compatibility has been the biggest roadblock in the past and we have yet to hear much on that front. When Apple does take the stage again to talk about the MacBook with Apple Silicon (likely sometime in October) all of these questions will be put to rest. For now, it’s good to see that the hardware production schedule remains on target as we can’t wait to get these laptops in our hands.
