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> I don't know what to make of this statement. Apple wants to control every aspect of the product.

Yup. There is zero chance they're going back to Intel. If a competitor could actually deliver better silicon than them, they'd be going to AMD, because AMD actually builds custom solutions and can be coaxed into at least getting decent security (see: Xbox), but that still leaves the power management gap on the table, and would force another ISA transition. It would be a monumental failure on Apple's part if their silicon engineering fell back to the point where it makes sense to give up all the control they have and the benefits that come with that to switch again to third-party chips. It's not going to happen unless Apple somehow ends up so far downhill that they are on the brink of failure and have no other choice.

OTOH, if Intel starts offering its fabs to third parties and somehow ends up ahead of TSMC again at a competitive price, sure, Apple will totally go for that. But they will definitely keep doing their own SoC designs.

I suppose if Intel were to start producing an ARM architecture chip again there's a slim possibility there to win some of Apple's business. But you're right I can't see Apple making an ISA transition again, at least not this decade.

Considering Apple have custom extensions to ARM already, they'd be giving up more than just the SoC design if they switched to a standard ARM core, unless eventually all those extensions get upstreamed into the spec... but I don't see GXF [1] getting upstreamed, at least not like that. That one is just crazy.

[1] https://blog.svenpeter.dev/posts/m1_sprr_gxf/

I think the most logical decision would be to design the Apple Modem / Wireless Chips with Intel Fab sometime in 2024+. Because it is the single product that doesn't directly compete with Intel, gets extra Fab capacity instead of relying on TSMC only, and doesn't need to go to their competitor Samsung Foundry.

There is also some Wireless / WiFI IP Apple could leverage, since Broadcom / Apple relationship has been unstable for years.

With IFS, they could still manufacture their designs. Maybe, I'm not sure.

> If [an Apple] competitor could actually deliver better silicon than them, they'd be going to AMD, because AMD actually builds custom solutions and can be coaxed into at least getting decent security (see: Xbox), but that still leaves the power management gap on the table, and would force another ISA transition.

AMD has an ARM architectural license, they've released ARM processors (e.g., the Opteron A-series, the AMD Platform Security Processor, etc.), and were at one point experimenting with a common ARM/x86 platform (Project Skybridge).

If Apple wanted a third party to design an ARM-compatible processor for them, AMD would be capable of doing so. Indeed, when there was speculation last year about AMD developing an ARM processor, I suggested that Apple would be the only customer where that would make sense.[1] However, given the success of M1 and Apple's scaling strategy for it, it's unlikely that AMD has anything to offer right now that Apple would want.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25298928

Keep in mind that apparently Apple's architectural license is better than everyone else's, since it seems only Apple gets to extend the ISA in ways forbidden by the architecture spec.

AMD do have an architectural license, but they have never used it. All the ARM cores in their products have been licensed from ARM, not in-house designs, so far.

Being a founding member has its perks.

I definitely concur on Apple not going back to Intel. Like you said, beyond performance, the problem with Intel is that they don't make the chips that Apple really wants. Apple is able to put an M1 into an iPad Pro because they were able to design the thermal and power requirements of the chip to what they wanted. At the same time, it's a very good laptop chip (even in the non-Pro/Max version) and lets them ship a fan-less MacBook Air with the same chip. Because they control the whole hardware, they can go with an efficient unified memory architecture that doesn't require copying.

Intel is pushing benchmarks on a 45 watt processor and trying to compare it to M1s using half the power or less. As a Mac user with an M1 Pro, I don't ever want to go back to a laptop that requires the fans to spin up all the time like my 2020 Intel MacBook Pro. Apple has shown that it can continue to churn out processors that are better than Qualcomm's (or anyone else) on the mobile side. It seems likely that they'll be able to maintain their pace with the M-series processors and it gives them the chance to build the best part for their needs.

I don't think it's strange for Intel to say that. They want to put the impression in your head that their future chips are going to be so great that the richest company in the world will come back and say, "we're sorry for leaving, could we get some of your amazing chips?" If they say, "we've written off Apple," they're saying that they won't ever make chips that are compellingly better than Apple's. The best Intel can hope for is to make chips competitive with Apple's. If that's the best Intel can do, what's to stop Microsoft, Lenovo, or HP from designing an ARM processor that's competitive with Intel and leaving Intel just as Apple did?

Intel needs to project the image that their future chips aren't just going to be competitive, but so good that they'll win Apple's business back. If they aren't that good, it leaves the door open to more companies ditching Intel.

Even if Intel knows they're never going to win Apple's business back, they want companies like Microsoft, Lenovo, and HP to see investing in ARM processors as a waste of money. If Intel processors are going to be so great in the next couple years that Apple is going to regret their decision, then any money I spend trying to create "Lenovo Silicon" ARM chips is just wasted money. By the time my chips are ready, I won't want to bring them to market since Intel will be so far ahead.

Likewise, it reassures shareholders and your board of directors that you believe that Intel's future is so bright that you'll leapfrog Apple. Your comment on how far Intel has fallen and how it's a disaster is a perception held by many. Apple leaving Intel was a very public rebuke of the company's ability to deliver good chips. Saying that you hope to win Apple back puts the impression in shareholders and directors minds that there's no reason to question Intel's new trajectory (new as of 2021). Sure, they haven't been able to deliver on that yet, but their new roadmap looks fancy. Intel 7 and Alder Lake sounds like a return to the Intel of old where they're improving their process - 7 is a nice shrink from 10, right? And Intel 4 is coming real soon! That should keep them competitive against 3nm from TSMC, right? To be fair, I think Intel's trajectory is improved, but not enough to surpass Apple. But management will want shareholders/directors to stick with them long enough for their plan to play out.

It is initially strange to say something like that, but it serves an important purpose for Intel.

Intel's "better chip" had better be faster and more power efficient. That's more or less the whole point of the M1--fast enough for normal use, and low power use so batteries last longer. Intel isn't exactly well known for power efficiency.

I assume this is CEO-speak to Intel shareholders to keep them from getting skittish.

What Intel should be worried about is whether Apple is hiring some top tier server systems designers. If Apple is able to leverage their M1 work into server systems that are fast and power efficient, they can hollow out Intel's profitable server business.

Minor nitpick: Apple moved from PowerPC, POWER was the earlier IBM ISA that PowerPC was based on (and is partially compatible with).

I'm surprised that there is not a non compete.

from a similar reddit comment, apparently non competes are not enforceable in California. not sure if true since I'm not from the US

It's very true and an often under appreciated reason for the healthy startup culture in california.

Neither cloud computing nor 80% of the desktop world run on M1, regardless how great they might be.

Yet.

It would run in ARM, it doesn't need to be as great as M1, it just need to be efficient. And it's already happening (e.g. Graviton).

Except general ARM isn't the same as M1, and Intel can just license ARM again as they already did once.

> general ARM isn't the same as M1

Of course it isn't, but it is in the same direction, i.e. A class of products of power efficiency that are not seen in X86 chips.

In terms of data centers/cloud, this is about the most important metric (cost) there is.

> Intel can just license ARM again as they already did once.

Of course they can, but for the larger players why would they want the middle man? The barrier of entry is already gone.

Everyone is a middle man,ARM doesn't own factories.

*extra middle man

Ummm... M1 is ARM. AWS Graviton is ARM (and way cheaper for the power you get). Literally EVERY iOS and Android device in the world, is ARM. Windows 11? ARM (with pretty decent x64 emulation, from experimenting with it!)

Thinking not only that desktops still matter, but that the current proportion of desktops matter where the future is concerned, and not looking at growth rates? That's a grievous error.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/arm-6-7-billion-chips-per-...

That is not the same hardware design, and nothing prevents Intel to license ARM yet again.

People should actually learn about CPU architectures and hardware design.

"The Apple M1 chip features four big Firestorm CPU cores for high-load scenarios, backed by four smaller Icestorm CPU cores designed for efficiency. If this sounds familiar, you’ve probably encountered Android phones with a similar ARM CPU layout. ARM calls this layout ARM big.LITTLE and it’s been around since 2014. The CPU uses the AArch64 or ARM64 extension set of the ARM architecture."

AArch64 is the ARM architecture API supported by every Linux variant that has an ARM build that I've ever seen to date. The very reason https://asahilinux.org/ was able to get up to speed so quickly is due to this fact (although they're still working on driver support for various subsystems).

If Intel has already licensed ARM, then what the hell is taking them so long? The M1 runs Intel code at similar speed but 1/6 the power cost. The fact that Apple pulled this off, and not Intel themselves, is hilarious. This would be like Intel coming out with an x64 chip that ran PowerPC code slightly faster than PowerPC itself but at 1/6 the power. x64 is a dead-man-walking CPU API, and it's about damn time.

Performance doesn't scale linearly with power use... very far from it actually. So making comparisons like "uses 2x the power" means very little. CPU will consume 2-3x more power to gain 5-10% performance. Especially in the desktop setting, they tend to consume as much power as possible for even the most incremental gains in performance... because obviously you're plugged into the wall.

And M1 is a process node ahead of Intel's offerings.

Intel fell laughably far behind on the manufacturing side, but people touting M1 as some design achievement and not simply a more cutting edge manufacturing process don't know what they're talking about.

The big gains in CPU performance in the modern era have always come from process node jumps. The big/little concept is a great architectural change for mobile as well. But you're not going to get substantially improved performance without improving the manufacturing side.

Both AMD and Intel's 5nm equivalent offerings will perform similarly to M1 on both power and perf.

How is 5nm going to erase using 200% more power (40W vs 120W) than the M1 while doing the same computing work?

Did you read the comment? 2x power use can translate to 5% performance difference. Obviously actual numbers will differ, but relationship is far from linear.

For example, desktop processors will use up to 3-4x power as mobile processors, yet not nearly 3-4x more powerful. More like a dozen or two percent at same core count.

M1 wouldn't be nearly twice as performant if given twice the power. Just as any other processor.

The early indications of next gen Intel/AMD mobile processors is that they're looking to be more powerful than m1. Right now they are a technology generation behind.

It's like comparing performance of PS5 to Xbox 360 and saying Sony is a better hardware creator.

I'm not knocking m1 at all, it's a good achievement. But people are worshiping it under false assumptions and incorrect comparisons. The primary advantage apple had was to buy out all the 5nm production at TSMC before AMD could

> M1 is ARM. AWS Graviton is ARM

Graviton 2 has an absolutely huge number of cores (64), but lacks the memory bandwidth to keep them all fed at once.

>the L3 cache of the Graviton2 was shared amongst all its cores, and we also discovered how only 8-16 cores were able to saturate the memory controllers of the system.

Scaling linearly across cores might be easy for some workloads, but for anything that even remotely has some kind of memory pressure should see greater slowdowns given that all the threads are competing for the shared L3 and DRAM resources.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15578/cloud-clash-amazon-grav...

There's more going on than "ARM is ARM".

This is an irrelevant criticism. The claim I was originally responding to was that "Neither cloud computing nor 80% of the desktop world run on M1, regardless how great they might be"

I think it's pretty clear I shot that all to hell by pointing out that M1 is ARM, and ARM is going everywhere, now and in the future.

Now, it's quite possible that the architectural details you point out may be design foibles for most workloads in just the Graviton2 series, but the writing is on the wall, the other 3 walls, the floor, and the ceiling that the near future is not x64 but some combination of ARM and RISC-V