Apple is planning to launch ARM-based chips that will be used on its Mac computers next year. The company is reportedly working on three custom ARM-based chipsets. These chipsets will be again, based on the A14 SoCs that will power the iPhone 12 series. Understandably, even though they will be based on the A14, the Mac version of these processors will be a lot more powerful. The chips will be produced by TSMC.
As per the report by Bloomberg, the first chip of the series will feature 8 cores. This includes four high-performance cores and four low-performance cores. These are also respectively codenamed Firestorm and Icestorm. That is two more cores compared to the A13 chipsets. Further, the other chips in the new series are set to feature 12-cores.
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Apple’s new chipsets will be manufactured by TSMC on the company’s 5nm fabrication process, It will be a complete SoC, featuring the CPU and GPU on the same die, similar to current A-series processors.
The new Macs that will come with these processors will continue to run the macOS operating system. Apple will likely offer some way to port existing x86 applications to the new ARM instructions. The brand’s Catalyst feature currently allows developers to port their iOS apps to macOS. It is hence, possible that the reverse implementation of the feature could be used.
The switch could also give Apple devices a significant performance boost. ARM processors are also more power-efficient. Moreover, switching to ARM will help Apple reduce its processor costs by 40 to 60 percent, reports The Verge.
Apple could bring the chips to the MacBooks
As per XDA, the new ARM-based Macs will likely be MacBooks. The performance boost and efficiency of the new chipset will largely benefit mobile computers. The report also goes hand-in-hand with a recent report from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo that suggested an ARM Mac could come in the markets in 2021. The plan may, however, be delayed with the ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic. That being said, it is also possible that Apple’s iMacs also make the jump to these new processors in the near future.
