Apple will announce ARM-based chips for the upcoming Mac devices in WWDC 2020 (Worldwide Developers Conference). The event is going to held on 22 June 2020. There is big speculation about this move by Apple and an analyst Mark Gurman at Bloomberg confirmed it.
Apple is seeking an option for a long time, to use the in-house chips in its Macs. This time they could unveil it or show us some glimpse of it. Optimizing things according to new chips is another big task for developers, so expecting new hardware with new ARM Chips too early, is not fair. The ARM chips are already in use with Apple’s iPhone and iPad, the upcoming chip will use the same technology but all Mac devices will run the macOS operating system rather than the iOS or iPadOS.
Apple’s chips are already superior in mobile and for computing it relies on Intel since 2006. It’s not the first time Apple is switching the chip, it has changed the chip two times, in the early 1990s from Motorola to PowerPC and in 2005 from PowerPC to Intel. likewise this time again, Apple is planning to ditch Intel and use its own SOC eventually. Already many companies like Microsoft, Samsung, and etc has unveiled laptops with ARM-based chips.
Apple decided to move from Intel CPUs after Intel’s performance gains and architectural changes slowed. Apple engineers are worried about the inconsistent road map of Intel that would delay the future capabilities of Mac. just like the things that happened with iPhone and Intel’s 5G Modem. However, Intel sales should not get affected much as Apple shares are low. But If Apple switched from Intel for performance reasons, it definitely going to change the mindset of many others as macs are the premium products.
According to Mark Gurman, the Internal test of new mac with ARM-based chips shown significant improvement compared to Intel, specifically in graphics performance and apps using artificial intelligence. Apple’s ARM processors are also very power-efficient than Intel’s, this clearly means that we can see more compact, lighter, and thin mac laptop with also some improvements in battery performance.
Intel still struggling to stable the 10nm fabrication whereas TSMC reached 5nm. Many Intel rivals like AMD, Qualcomm, and etc use TSMC for chip manufacturing which gives them the advanced process node and technology advantage. Mac’s new ARM processors will use TSMC and probably use a 5nm production facility. Apple is working on this project for several years and Mac may get the processor shift here.
All the announcements we can see at WWDC 2020, due to coronavirus pandemic the event is online. There is a huge possibility that Apple could announce the new ARM chips in this event, as some hints show the focus will be the MacBook.
