A close look at Apple’s die images shows that the M1 Pro is actually a chopped-down version of the M1 Max. As noted in our article from last night, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg had written that the M1X would come in two versions known as Jade C-Chop and Jade C-Die.
One Chip, Not Two
It appears that there is a noticeable “cut line” in the M1 Max chip. If this chip is actually the die coming off the 300mm TSMC wafer for Apple, it would explain Gurman’s Jade C-Die version of the chip, which he implied would be more powerful than Jade C-Chop.
Apple’s three M-series chips for Macs. The M1 Pro is actually a version of the M1 Max that is cut across the dark lines in the lower center of the image far right.
The M1 Pro appears to simply be the northern part of the M1 Max chip as seen in the image. A close look reveals perfect symmetry about the cut-line shown in the lower image below.
MORE: Apple Will Introduce M1X Chiplet Technology On Monday
That cut line halves the possible GPU cores from 32 to 16 cores. Both chips have the same maximum 10 CPU cores. Gurman spoke of future chips having 20 and 40 cores, which is why we wrote yesterday that a chiplet strategy would allow Apple to place this chip onto a “chiplet” package and double and quadruple the chip to arrive at ever more powerful versions of Apple Silicon for desktop Macs.
Apple’s M1 Pro is “Jade C-Chop” per Mark Gurman’s late spring report. (click image for larger view).
Ironically, Apple could still go this way but given how they approached this M1 update, I’m beginning to question my analysis on how Apple will arrive at 20 and 40 CPU core options. On the other hand, what is Apple doing with the chopped 16 GPU core portion of the Jade C-Die? Would such an approach possibly make sense? How could this factor into the edge of the wafer with the circular shape intrudes on rectangular chips? Could these chopped-off segments be utilized in a chiplet strategy for the next M chips for the Apple Mac Pro and larger iMac so they are not wasted?
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