Apple is set to make a significant internal change for its 2026 MacBook Pro models with the new advanced Liquid Molding Compound (LMC) packaging for the next generation of Apple M5 Macs. Although it’s still clad in what looks like a Tesla, this new method of building processors will keep unlocking new performance and efficiency in the years to come.
Taiwan-based Eternal Materials will be the sole supplier of LMC for Apple M5 Macs, according to industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The material is designed for TSMC’s Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate (CoWoS) packaging for high-performance computing chips and AI accelerators.
Though full CoWoS integration won’t be complete until 2026 (which is when Apple M5 Macs will be built), now is a good time to gear up, using compatible materials in the supply chain. With CoWoS, multiple chiplets can be stacked within a single package, or placed side-by-side, allowing for massive bandwidth and compute density increase. This might allow such future Apple chips like the M6 or M7 to run AI model training, high-end 3D rendering and other heavy lifting workloads much more efficiently.
LMC will offer Apple M5 Macs short-term classroom benefits, including higher structural integrity, heat dissipation, and manufacturability. These improvements enable consistent performance with control over power consumption.
In fact, Eternal Materials won the contract over Japanese rivals Namics and Nagase from a supply chain point of view, which is also a sign that Apple is rightly moving to Taiwan-based suppliers for advanced chip materials. It frees Apple to research and work with more advanced processors without requiring approval from other manufacturers, which is particularly important for developing its most powerful chips to date.
As go Apple so follows the A20 series in the 20th-anniversary iPhone, according to Kuo. It’s expected to launch alongside new MacBook Pro models in early 2023, while an M6-powered refresh could follow sometime in 2026.
That could translate into giant multi-die CoWoS chips that deliver unprecedented memory bandwidth for Apple, especially if Apple brings these same CoWoS, or even Chip-on-Package-on-Substrate (CoPoS) technologies to future generations. The Apple M5 Macs will also benefit from LMC packaging that could already make a difference in efficiency and performance right now.
FAQs
Liquid Molding Compound (LMC) chip packaging material that enhances thermal conductivity, mechanical strength, and fabrication speed.
Not yet. LMC is what Apple is using to get ready for CoWoS, so probably when M6 or M7 chips come along, CoWoS is in there.
CoWoS allows multi-die chip designs, improving bandwidth, performance, and efficiency over traditional methods for workloads including AI and 3D rendering.
