According to rumors, Apple has ordered an improved version of the M1 cHip for new MacBook Pro models. The chip, presumably named M2, is to be manufactured by the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer TSMC in a 4 nanometer production process.
The successor model to the first MacBook Pro with the highly integrated M1 chip designed by Apple itself, which will be unveiled in
November 2020, will be more powerful simply because of the new manufacturing process, since the M1 chip was still manufactured in the 5 nanometer process and the new second-generation Apple silicon chip manufactured in the 4 nanometer process would therefore hold even more circuits in the same space.
Apple could of course also give the M2 SoC (System-on-a-Chip) even more performance through improved components (such as encoding or decoding or the Neural Engine), more on-board RAM or a larger format that offers space for even more CPU and/or GPU cores. The ARM technology-based M1 SoC had four performance as well as four energy-saving cores, which share the RAM, which is also on-chip, with the 8-core GPU on the same chip; the M2 could have a bit more.
However, new models based on the M2 chip are not expected until fall 2021 at the earliest, when Apple traditionally introduces new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models.
Here is our review of the MacBook Pro 13" with M1 with video applications:
The MacBook Pro 13" M1 in 4K, 5K, 8K and 12K performance tests with ARRI, RED, Canon and others.