Apple M2

The Apple M2 is an ARM-based (SoC) designed by Apple. Senior VP Johny Srouji introduced it on June 6 at the 2022 Worldwide Developers Conference, where Senior VP John Ternus also introduced the new MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro, which would be the first Macs to incorporate the M2. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro became available for pre-order on June 17 with general availability scheduled by June 24. Support for the M2 was added in build 21F2092 of macOS 12.4 (Monterey), which was released on June 16, 2022.

Specifications
The M2 is manufactured by TSMC to Apple's design specifications. The contains 20 billion transistors that are fabricated through a 2nd-generation  (N5P). Dynamic RAM (DRAM) is built onto the package and is shared through Apple's unified memory architecture (UMA) to eliminate the need to copy data from the CPU to GPU, which are both part of the package.

The 8-core CPU contains four high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, similiar to the architecture used by the Apple M1 and other mobile devices for power efficiency. The GPU contains 10 cores for graphics, though only 8 may be activated in entry-level MacBook Air models, indicating the practice of. The improved bandwidth of the Media Engine can enable real-time playback of multiple 8K video streams.

Performance
Apple claimed that the M2's CPU performance was increased by up to 18%, and GPU performance was increased by up to 35% over that of the Apple M1 at comparably efficient power comsumption levels. While containing the same number of cores, the updated Neural Engine can deliver up to 15.8 trillion operations per second, over 40% more than the M1. The memory controller also operates at 100GB/s, about 50% faster than the M1.

Limitations
DRAM must be ordered in advance in 8, 16, or 24 GB configurations as they are part of the M2's SoC package.

Articles

 * M1 vs. M2 Chip Buyer's Guide: How Much Better Really Is M2? by Hartley Charlton at MacRumors (2022-06-23)