Apple Continuing Work on M2 Chip With Help From Samsung

Apple is continuing its work on the upcoming "M2" chip with help from Samsung Electro-Mechanics, ET News reports.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics supplies the flip chip ball grid array (FC-BGA), a printed circuit board used to connect the semiconductor chip to the main substrate, for the M1 chip. This detail did not emerge until almost a year after the ‌M1‌ chip was introduced, when it was uncovered by The Elec.

While the ‌M1‌, like all of Apple's custom silicon SoCs, is fabricated exclusively by Taiwan's TSMC, the chip includes components from several suppliers. For example, the chip's board is supplied by Ibiden and Unimicron, so it is necessary for Apple to coordinate multiple suppliers for its next-generation SoC for the Mac.

According to today's report from ET News, Samsung is expected to continue to provide the FC-BGA for the ‌M2‌. The company is said to be collaborating with Apple in a project to develop the ‌M2‌ chip and will complete work on the FC-BGA for it this year.

Apple purportedly began developing the ‌M2‌ immediately after introducing the ‌M1‌ chip. The report reiterated Mark Gurman's claim that Apple is testing at least nine new Macs with four different ‌M2‌ chip variants, and that the first devices with the ‌M2‌ could debut in the first half of 2022. The chip could first be introduced in Apple's redesigned MacBook Air.