Manzana It’s been some time since he’s swapped out the Intel processors in his Mac laptops and desktops for his own Apple Silicone, something he has been doing for a long time with iPhones and iPads. All traces of Intel chips in their computers are even eliminated by replacing them with others from a different manufacturer, but with the same function. On top of this, Apple wants to save some money on licenses and change some of the ARM chips integrated into their processors by others with RISC-V architecture by SiFive. This is something that other large companies have already done.
According to they tell us in SemiAnalisys these are the plans of Apple and some other big companies. Apple processors, in addition to ARM-based CPU and GPU cores, feature other chips that perform different functions. Among these are the management of Thunderbolt, WiFi, Bluetooth, USB, touch panel control, etc. These chips are ARM-based of the M or A series for which you would have to pay a license when using this type of architecture. By changing these ARM chips for other RISC-V would save the money of these licenses.
The change is easier than it seems, you should simply do a small firmware adjustment so that they can work with the new architecture. For now it is not known when and how this change will be madesince the main cores, protagonists of Apple Silicon processors, will continue to use the ARM architecture and this will only mean a small inappreciable change for users.
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Juan Antonio Soto
I am a Computer Engineer and my specialty is automation and robotics. My passion for hardware began at the age of 14 when I gutted my first computer: a 386 DX 40 with 4MB of RAM and a 210MB hard drive. I continue to give free rein to my passion in the technical articles that I write in Geeknetic. I spend most of my free time playing video games, contemporary and retro, on the more than 20 consoles I have, in addition to the PC.
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