We've been hearing rumblings about Apple's internal project to ditch Intel processors for its own in-house designed chips since that 2012 Bloomberg report, and now a revered analyst has predicted that ARM-based Macs would be coming in 2020 or 2021.
Contract manufacturer Pegatron has been allegedly tipped to land orders from Apple to produce its rumored hybrid ARM-based MacBook model, according to industry sources mentioned today in a report by Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes.
In spite of assurances from Intel that software fixes for the recently publicized vulnerabilities in CPU designs would not result in substantial performance penalty, Apple has nevertheless found itself in the middle of a legal brouhaha over Meltdown and Spectre over in Israel.
Apple has been designing its own mobile CPUs (and now GPUs as well) for years even though it has used Intel's chips to power its Mac notebooks and desktops since 2005.
According to a new report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and Ian King, Apple is developing a new ARM-based chip for Macs that would take on more of the low power mode functionality that's currently being handled by Intel processors.
This upcoming piece of silicon may first become available in a next-generation MacBook Pro planned for later this year. Among other things, it would help improve battery life.
Could Apple be working on next-generation Mac hardware that would be powered by an in-house designed processor based on CPU blueprints from British fabless semiconductor maker ARM Holdings plc? That's exactly the conclusion one could reach by looking closely at code strings in the macOS Sierra kernel, discovered by Dutch outlet TechTastic.nl.
Chip giant Intel announced today at its Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco an important deal with UK-based fabless semiconductor maker ARM Holdings that will permit other foundries to build chips based on ARM's most advanced Cortex-series CPU cores using Intel's sophisticated ten-nanometer process technology.
Given that Apple's in-house designed A-series chips include fully customized 64-bit CPU cores based on ARM technology, the announcement expands Apple's options by letting its contract silicon manufacturers such as Samsung and TSMC fabricate iPhone and iPad chips using Intel's foundry services.
Japan's carrier SoftBank has announced it will be purchasing British fabless semiconductor maker ARM Holdings plc for a reported $32 billion, which is around a 43 percent premium on its closing market value of $22.25 billion on Friday. ARM confirmed the deal (PDF download) on Monday.
According to the statement, ARM's board is expected to recommend shareholders accept the offer. Apple is an investor in ARM and licenses its technology as a basis for custom CPU designs for its own A-series chips which power iOS devices.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC), the world's top semiconductor foundry, and ARM holdings plc, a British multinational fabless semiconductor designer, have joined forces to make an upcoming 7-nanometer FinFET process a reality in time for volume production in early-2017.
TSMC currently manufactures the iPhone 6s's A9 chip on its 16-nanometer process, while Samsung-made A9 chips are fabbed on a smaller 14-nanometer process.
The timing of TSMC's seven-nanometer FinFET process suggests it might be used to fabricate Apple-designed 'A11' processors for the iPhone 8 in 2017. By comparison, Intel has said it will produce 10nm node processors in the second half of 2017.
It's been speculated for years that Macs which run ARM-based processors instead of Intel chips have been in internal testing for quite some time.
This weekend a French publication has resurrected the rumor, claiming that the iPhone maker is indeed actively prototyping several ARM-based Mac models.
Moreover, the company is also working on a brand new keyboard which integrates the Magic Trackpad, Apple's multitouch trackpad currently available as a standalone $69 accessory. But why would Apple transition from Intel to ARM-based chips and what benefits would such a major brain transplant bring to your daily computing?
Read on for the full reveal...
In a surprise announcement that sent shockwaves throughout the technology industry, Intel said it will open kimono to arch-rival TSMC and begin making chips for third-parties, based on CPU blueprints from the British fabless semiconductor maker ARM Holdings, plc. Apple is among the licensees of ARM's technology for its own in-house chips which serve as the engine powering the iPhone, iPad and iPod devices.
This is a huge development. Not only will Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor company, now fabricate its own ARM-based 64-bit mobile chips starting next year, it will now undoubtedly compete for the lucrative Apple business, especially given the iPhone maker has long been looking to take its chip-making contract elsewhere...
Following their initial analysis of the iPhone 5s's innards, silicon experts at Chipworks have now taken a closer look at the handset's 64-bit A7 processor to reveal a number of interesting tidbits in their initial low-level chip analysis. Based on transistor-level images of the Apple-designed, Samsung-built package, Chipworks was able to determine that the A7 consists of a dual-core processing core and quad-core graphics, tentatively identified as the four cluster version of Imagination Technologies’s PowerVR Series 6, the G6430.
Apple, along with Intel, is of course an investor with a ten percent stake in Imagination Technologies, the UK-based fabless semiconductor maker. Chipworks also focused on a portion of the A7 chip called Secure Enclave where Apple says fingerprint profile is stored securely and walled off from the entire system, except the Touch ID circuitry...