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That all depends on their current licensing terms, doesn't it?

Besides, ARM-to-RISC-V doesn't require a full redesign. Plenty of components are going to stay more-or-less the same, the big change is the instruction decoder. Chip developers have done far more drastic redesigns while staying with the same ISA - just look at the history of x86.

I think the bigger question is: does Apple want to go through another binary compatibility break?

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Look into Apple's ARM licensing terms. They are very generous to apple.

ARM could change that in the long term, Apple doesn't own them. It would be a generational fumble by ARM to lose Apple as a customer, though.

The license agreement they signed a few years back goes into the 2040s. Long term, you are right obviously. That is just so long term, so much can happen in that time span it's hard to even guess.

We have no idea at all what the terms are.

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