You’re hard at work, your laptop on your lap, and it’s time for your battery to die. However, surely you have seen the 100% shown not long ago. A situation that many have experienced, as long as they work on less powerful PCs, rarely synonymous with great autonomy.
If there’s one problem that Apple MacBooks with an internal Apple Silicon chip have solved, it’s battery life. Since the advent of the famous M1, M1 Ultra, M2, M2 Max and other chips, Apple-branded computers shine with their endurance that easily exceeds 20 hours. From MacBook Air to MacBook Pro, all equipped with M chips, the result is in the same vein. And it could go even further.
25 to 30% less consumption
If the 2022-2023 season is that of the M2 range already established in the macbook air and MacBook Pro launched last June, but now also in an advanced version of the recent MacBook Pro M2 Pro and M2 Max, rumors are already suggesting the next one. As of the second half of 2023, the new M3 chip would therefore sign its arrival, according to digitimes.
In itself, this is not information. Every year its a new chip at Apple, now in MacBooks and in iPhones. But this would have an important technological specificity: the transition to 3nm etching.
A feat to which all the founders (manufacturers) of chips like Samsung Foundry (which supplies Qualcomm) or TSMC -which is working on those designed by Apple- aim, is the latest in terms of possibilities offered to the chips, these brains of any technological device. Burning the transistors present in a 3nm chip allows adding many more on the same surface, thus offering more performance (+10 to 15%) with a reduced consumption of possibly 25 to 30%. This would then make it possible to have a more efficient MacBook Air, especially with a marked increase in autonomy.
The iPhone 15 Pro also affected
digitimes Thus he explains that the MacBook Air would have Apple’s preferences to take advantage of this new chip to bet on a more affordable product for the general public. This could even come with a new 15-inch screen diagonal on top of the current 13.6-inch model.
In absolute terms, none of this seems impossible. TSMC has long explained that it’s working on 3nm etching, and a new, larger MacBook Air has long been rumored. Apple redesigned its entry-level laptop last June with a new M2 chip, after sales of M1 models soared the previous year. And the next version will necessarily switch to the M3 chip, without needing the power of the M2 Pro or M2 Max.
And MacBook Airs wouldn’t be the only beneficiaries of finer engraving by TSMC. The upcoming iPhone 15 Pro and its A17 chip would also exploit the technology, promising even longer autonomy and an even higher number of calculations by the processors.
Source: BFM TV
