The M-series Mac Pro was always for companies which were going to rack them and use them in render farms. Normal people was never its intended market. It was more of an Xserve successor.
Apple would need to design a different CPU for the Mac Pro, and the limited market doesn’t make it feasible. Descending the M-series CPUs from the A-series limits what the designs can do.
There are rumors of a CPU split in the Apple lineup. iPhone, iPad, iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook get the A-series, and MacBook Pro, Mac Studio. Mac Pro get the M-series. That would make sense, and might give them some room to expand the “Pro” procs.
TSMC does have fabs in Arizona now. Next to the Intel fabs. 😆
It’s more about money and proprietary tech.
Cutting edge fabs are expensive and risky, which is why most chip companies are fabless, and they should be a state project because of the risk and expense. I’ve seen estimates of $15-$20 billion dollars to setup a new 3nm fab.
Intel, TSMC, and Samsung are the 3 companies left which run cutting edge fabs. Intel missed on a couple generations, and they are sinking. Samsung is lagging, so it remains to be seen how long they’re in the game.
TSMC figured out the new tech and Intel didn’t. TSMC picked the correct horse, and Intel didn’t. It’s my understanding Intel couldn’t switch to the TSMC process if they wanted to. The two are different enough to be incompatible.
Going to second then poly thing. Gotta save money where possibly in this economy.