Apple M1 chip is the latest processor revealed by Apple. Earlier Apple used to buy processors for its Macbook from Intel Corporation. Apple and Intel started working together in the year 2006 and since then they have been working closely. Apple is a company that is famous for its secrecy and control over its platform completely. Due to the chip was designed by another company, Apple was facing difficulties implementing its ideas due to design limitations. The processors that Intel was designing, were not specially designed for Macbook.
That is why Apple took the matter into its own hands and started developing its own processor for Macbook. Apple becomes the first tech company in the world that designs its own processors for its own machines that runs its own operating system. They now will have complete control over the entire apple experience. No other company has been apple to achieve it for decades.
About Apple M1 Chip
Apple M1 chip is a processor specially designed for its MacBook and Apple desktops. The company has designed this processor based on ARM technology. ARM Limited is a United Kingdom based semiconductor and software company. The manufacturing of the Apple M1 chip is most likely to be done by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing company. This is the same company that manufactures AMD’s Ryzen processors.
Apple M1 processor is an 8 Core processor that has a cache of 12MB. 12MB cache is huge progress when compared to the 8MB cache of the A14 Bionic iPhone processor. 4 Cores of M1 are clocked higher for high performance and 4 cores are clocked at low frequency for power savings. The processor also has an 8 Core GPU.
Apple M1 Special Design
The M1 chip is not just another processors, This is specially designed to house 5 chips in one package. Those 5 chips are mentioned below.
- CPU
- DDR4 Ram
- I/O Chip
- ThunderBoalt Controller
- Apple T2 Chip
We all know when we talk about a processor that means we are discussing the Central Processing Unit (CPU). Apple M1 chip is not just a CPU but it’s a combination of 5 chips in one package. This became possible due to POP technology.
POP (Package Over Package) Technology
In this technology we take multiple packages and stack them on top of and beside each other, then make them work as a single unit. POP enables us to fit more components in a single package that increases their performance because the stacked components can communicate faster than separate components. POP is mostly used when designing processors for mobile phones, digital cameras etcetera.
This will be the first time when a chip based on POP design technology will be used in laptops and desktops. For a very long time, Ram and CPU were two different chips on the motherboard and they used to communicate through the tracks on the motherboard. The motherboard manufacturers paid a lot of attention to making the tracks as fast as possible and keeping the CPU and Ram as close to each other as possible so that they can communicate faster. Apple has put 5 most important chips on the motherboard inside a single chip.
The design will save Apple some space on the motherboard and Apple can design even slimmer products. Apple may also decide to use this free space to put some extra battery in its products too. The possibility is so many.
History of Apple Buying Processors
Before 2006, Apple used to buy processors from IBM for its Macbook and Desktops, It had ditched IBM for Intel’s x86 design processors in 2006. Since 2006 Apple has been buying processors from Intel until November 10, 2020. Apple has revealed its first Desktop/Laptop processor called M1.
Apple Claims Over M1 Processor
Low Power Consumption
The specifications and claims about its performance are just mind-boggling. The Apple M1 chip is based on 5-nanometer design architecture just like its iPhone processor A14 Bionic. 5-nanometer design architecture is the latest and has the lowest power consumption. Due to the 5-nanometer architecture design, power consumption has gone down drastically. Apple claims the Macbook will give 20 hours of 8K video playback time. 20 hours claim is huge when comparing to its current Macbook playback time of 10 hours approximately.
Huge Performance Gain
If that is not shocking enough for you, Apple has also claimed that it has put 16 Billion transistors in the M1 chip which is 35% more than the A14 Bionic processor. More transistors mean more power to the chip. During the launch, Apple revealed that it has compared the performance of the M1 processor with intel’s i3 chip. Both systems were equipped with 16GB of Ram and 2TB SSD. The performance of the M1 chip was 6 times that of the Intel i3 processor. That is a huge gain in performance.
iPhone, iPad Apps in MacBook
Due to design limitations, Apple was not able to achieve complete synchronization between mobile and desktop platforms. Earlier if you wanted to install an iPhone application into your MacBook, you were supposed to use a Simulator which will work as a translation layer between MacBook and Mobile platform. That hassle is gone now. Apple claims, with the M1 chip the users will be able to install iPhone and iPad apps into Macbook without any translation layer. Now iPhone and iPad applications will be treated as Native applications in MacBook. Isn’t that awesome?
Future of Apple
Apple has a long history of keeping everything in its control. Apple has designed a chip for its iPhones earlier. The latest iPhone processor is A14. It is also called A14 Bionic chip. In the iPhone department, apple had complete control because it has everything self-designed. Apple’s iPhone motherboard is designed by Apple, A14 Bionic processor is designed by Apple and the operating system that runs on iOS is also designed by Apple.
Now the same trend will be followed by MacBook and Desktops too. Apple has designed the motherboard of the Macbook, Apple has now the self-designed processor for MacBook, and Apple has its own operating system that is designed by Apple.
With this strategy, Apple has a huge advantage over its competitors. Because Apple is the only company that has designed everything in-house and will not be sharing its revenue with anyone.
Not only financial benefits, but Apple also has complete control over the performance. Earlier they used to design their software according to intel processors but now they will design be able to modify their processors according to their needs.
Microsoft has recently changed the name of bing to Microsoft bing. Click on the link to read more.
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