Apple will now develop its chips based on ARM. Why does it do that, and with that architecture can it match the performance of Intel chips?
Yes, because a lot has changed on the chip market, says microelectronics professor Marian Verhelst.
Apple will now develop its own processors with Apple Silicon and will say goodbye to Intel chips in Mac computers in the next two years.
In practice, it doesn’t do that from scratch. Although the word ‘ARM’ did not fall during Tim Cook’s presentation, Apple does use that architecture, say the big blueprints of how a chip works.
The production is (according to very credible rumours) carried out by TSMC.
But in between, there is still a broad field where Apple can optimize its chips according to its own wishes, both in terms of performance and profit margin.
We mainly know ARM from smartphones and light devices, but the versatile architecture has also surfaced in recent years in servers and very demanding environments.
Coincidentally, Apple’s announcement coincides with the announcement that the fastest supercomputer in the world runs on ARM processors.