Moving away from Intel: Apple plans to install its own processors in its Macs in the future
Picture: picture alliance / picture alliance / Peter Kneffel / dpa
Apple, whose share price has recently risen strongly despite the Covid crisis
could and their market capitalization has become the unimaginable
Once again exceeds $ 1.5 trillion
in the process of revolutionizing the IT world: In the future, the in-house
A processors based on the ARM design also used in the Apple Mac
become. That does not mean anything
less than that of a processor originally developed for smartphones
will drive desktop computers and classic laptops in the future.
Intel, which for many years has been the processor for Apple’s Mac computer
deliver had tried the opposite way years ago: A
slimmed down and optimized for efficiency x86 processor, the Intel Atom,
should bring desktop power to the smartphone.
Actually saw
isolated Intel smartphones the light
of the world. However, they never found the goodwill of customers. The author
of these lines still remembers a press interview with one
Intel representative, where this is the performance advantages of the Medfield platform
wanted to display by looking at the display in a long browser page
scrolled. On my objection that the display is visibly jerky and
is visibly less fluid than on the one available for comparison
Android device with ARM CPU, I received the in the style of a senior teacher
Answer: “x86 has the better performance”. Well, at
Smartphone processors probably never did that, and with
Desktop processors are now also under Intel from several sides
Pressure.
Speculation that Apple is based on Intel’s Mac processors
in-house ARM processors could switch,
already existed in 2012. That it is only now
is far and the changeover should take place in the next two years,
should be because the ARM processor family last again
has received a significant performance boost: better graphics units
(GPU) and special processors for the calculation of AI software
(“Neural Processing Unit”, NPU for short) are at a distance of
ARM processors to Intel’s x86 processors
again reduced, or in some areas the ARM processors
even let it pass.
It’s the mix that matters
Moving away from Intel: Apple plans to install its own processors in its Macs in the future
Picture: picture alliance / picture alliance / Peter Kneffel / dpa
Apple’s concept has always been, not through brute benchmark performance
convince, but through a coherent concept of design, performance,
Efficiency and ergonomics. So now is the time for them
Switching over: ARM is fast enough to perform normal desktop tasks
such as opening an Office document or viewing a website
without noticeable delays. For
Tasks for which the CPU is too slow alone are the
Software developers use the numerous additional processors
must: the GPU for image or video editing or the NPU for
Text and image recognition.
In case of doubt, the A processor in a Mac can also be due
of the thicker battery and better cooling options in the larger housing
Clock higher for longer than in an iPhone. So in the end the Mac will continue
perform better than the iPhone. But the distance narrowed
of course further.
Intel under pressure
For Intel, Apple’s announcement is obviously not good news.
For the past two years, Intel has been under pressure
that with their chip factories they don’t keep pace with the competition
could hold. This is how the majority of Intel processors are still used today
made with 14nm lithography, while the competition from TSMC and
Samsung has long since reached 7 nm. However, they are
Intel competitors are probably a bit more generous in naming than
Intel: Intel’s 10nm process, the chip production of which is coming
Months to ramp up after the yield is previously improved
could achieve about the same density of logic units as that
7 nm process from TSMC and Samsung. But the latter are starting these days
5 nm production already: the next generation of Apple
A processors, Samsung’s Exynos processors and Huawei’s Kirin processors
According to rumors and announcements, it should already be in 5 nm
be produced. And then they won’t
only in the latest iPhones, Samsung Galaxy Notes and Huawei Mates
Do service, but also in the first MacBooks.
Arch-rival AMD with its
new Zen microarchitecture also stalked at Intel and at
the performance per core almost equal. With Zen 2 are
they even slightly overtook Intel in places. Because AMD but access
on the better manufacturing processes of the Intel competition
they integrate more cores per chip than Intel. So the power loss
remains the same, you have to clock the cores a little lower,
overall performance rises due to the higher core number
still clear. End in the episode
therefore almost all multicore benchmarks in terms of price and dated
Power-hungry comparable processors between Intel’s current
Chips and AMD’s Zen-2 chips in favor of AMD. Only with the
Gaming performance is still lagging behind in some cases,
probably because most games better match sales
still leading Intel processors are adapted.
Given these circumstances, is it time for a swan song on Intel?
Well, certainly not. Intel has from the times when it
Processor market dominated unchallenged, still huge reserves. Should
if they continue to be under pressure, they will use these reserves,
to reinvent their processors and get back to the top of the world
to catapult. Should the problems with your own manufacturing
stop, you have the option to use your processors with the
to have leading contract manufacturers manufactured. With new ones
Intel is already taking this step with processors: for autumn
Intel has announced the dedicated graphics processor Xe, which
Nvidia’s GeFore and AMD’s Radeon processors are said to compete.
However, only the chip design comes from Intel, which becomes the chip manufacturer
not be Intel, but TSMC.
