At its annual World Wide Developer Conference, Apple dropped many jaws when announcing that their Mac line will be switching away from Intel processors before the year is out. Intel’s x86 architecture is the third to grace Apple’s desktop computer products, succeeding PowerPC and the Motorola 68000 family before it.

In its place will be Apple’s own custom silicon, based on 64-bit ARM architecture. Apple are by no means the first to try and bring ARM chips to bear for general purpose computing, but can they succeed where others have failed?

ARM – A Long Road To The Top

The ARM processor was created by Acorn Computers in the distant past of 1983, with the name originally standing for Acorn RISC Machine. Using Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) techniques, the resulting chips used fewer transistors than classical CISC designs, and used less power as a result. Developed for Acorn’s computer line, later chips also found a home in Apple’s Newton PDA, as far back as 1992. However, as Acorn’s computer business faltered, the technology was largely forgotten from the mainstream.

Despite this, the underlying technology was sound. Spending most of the next two decades languishing in obscurity, the ARM architecture hit its stride when smartphones hit the scene. Devices required plenty of processing power while maintaining great battery life; the ARM was just the tool for the job. Fast forward to today, and ARM chips power 95% of the world’s smartphones.

When Apple’s iPhone revolutionized the way we all thought about phones, it was packing a 32-bit ARM processor sourced from Samsung. As Apple’s continued to release new mobile hardware they were acquiring companies and talent to expand the company’s silicon design capabilities. In 2010, Apple took a major step forward with the A4. The first System-on-Chip designed in-house by Apple, it was an ARM Cortex-A8 manufacturded by Samsung to power the iPad and iPhone 4. This was just the beginning, with Apple continuing to build on this success with each following generation of tablets and smartphones.

After years of being beholden to outside companies for its CPUs, Apple was finally in charge of its own destiny – on mobile platforms, at least. Its desktop and laptop computers had benefited from the switch to Intel’s x86 chips in 2006. However, working with outside partners necessarily has drawbacks, and with over a decade of experience at designing its own chips, Apple no longer considered it worthwhile. The announcement makes it clear that the official transition will take place over a two-year period, with Intel-based machines being supported for some time afterwards. But the writing is now on the wall over at Apple — x86 is dead, long …read more

Source:: Hackaday