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Do you mean there's no ARM chips that they can buy? Surely the ARM chips in Apple's devices are powerful enough aren't they?

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You can’t buy an M3 chip on its own

Why can’t someone else make one?

That’s very much the trick. Apple is actually exceptionally good at making CPUs. Look at these single-thread benchmarks: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/single-thread/ Similarly, if you look for the M4 in this list and then look for other ARM chips, you’ll have to look quite a ways down the list: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/multithread/mobile

It’s baffling to me that no one else (Qualcomm) has not been able to come close.

My guess is that CPU design is existential for Apple, and no one else cares enough to be dedicated enough to do what Apple has done.

This is exactly what happens when you invest billions and hire the best industry specialists for decades. M-series processors did not magically appear out of nowhere. Apple perfected them for years in iPhones, but people didn't have the ability to compare since Apple doesn't share their processors with anyone.

Because it’s a proprietary design? You’d have to reverse-engineer the whole chip, which is really hard to do on that process node

Giving them some credit, I think they're asking "why isn't there a close competitor" and that takes a much more involved answer.

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