Intel was abandoned! A detailed account of Apple's bloody history of chip replacement

Latest update time：2021-09-01 07:05

Reads：

( 340+ members have joined! Waiting for you! )

At 1 a.m. on June 23, Apple's 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC20) was held as scheduled. After introducing the annual updates of many operating systems, the self-made "computer chip" that most concerned the market finally came to a conclusion. Apple officially announced that future Macs will use a new self-developed Apple chip. Although Cook said on the spot that Apple will also release some new Macs based on Intel chips, the probability that Apple will still use Intel processors after the two-year transition period is very small.

Apple 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference

Image credit: Apple

Why are Intel chips no longer popular?

Mac will use self-developed Apple chips, which means that the cooperation between Apple and Intel is facing a huge change. The cooperation between the two parties began in 2005. Although products such as iPhone and iPad have long adopted self-developed A series Arm processors, Mac has been using Intel x86 chips for 15 years. Now Apple has announced that Mac will use self-developed ARM architecture chips. Why?

Data shows that Apple's market share and performance have been challenged in recent years. According to Apple's second fiscal quarter 2020 (December 29, 2019 to March 28, 2020) financial report, the company's revenue for the quarter was US$58.31 billion, a slight increase of 1% from US$58.02 billion in the same period last year, and its net profit was US$11.25 billion, a decrease of . Among them, Mac sales last year were nearly US$26 billion. Its growth rate last year was only 2%, and this year it is expected to fall by 2% due to the impact of the epidemic.

It can be seen that Apple's revenue growth has slowed down, and it is no longer able to dominate the market share like it did a few years ago. Now Apple is eager to get rid of the current situation. If it wants to maintain its position as an industry leader, it must continue to develop more advanced products.

On the one hand, Intel's chip upgrade speed, which is like squeezing toothpaste, obviously cannot keep up with Apple's demands , which makes Apple's top management worry that Apple's leading position as the global market leader will be affected.

Previous tests have shown that the performance of Intel's low-power i3 and i5 processors has been surpassed by Apple's A series chips. According to the introduction at WWDC20 held today, after using its own ARM architecture chips, laptops will not only have a significant performance improvement, but also have significantly lower power consumption than the Intel processor era.

Benchmark comparison of MacBook Air 2020 with i5 processor and iPad Pro 2018 with A12X

Data source: Geekbench

On the other hand, Intel has focused its business on server chips in recent years. According to the financial report, Intel's data center business revenue in the first quarter of 2020 was US$7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 42.7%. In contrast, the PC chip business grew at a rate of only 14%. Compared with server chips, PC chips have been neglected, and Apple is also dissatisfied with the fact that Apple chips are often out of stock.

Apple has always been a demanding partner, putting enormous pressure on suppliers. After 15 years of cooperation, the two partners finally parted ways. As Steve Jobs said when he officially launched the new processor chip in 2005: "This processor will ensure that we continue to lead for the next decade." Now that Apple's processor chip has been used for 15 years, it is time to replace it.

(Click to join VIP! Be the first to read more about the latest Apple news!)

The chip giants that have had a love-hate relationship with Apple over the years

Motorola

Just as it is not the first time for Apple to develop its own chips, Intel is not the first supplier that Apple has abandoned. In the 1990s, Jobs announced that he would develop chips with IBM and Motorola to resist the monopoly of Microsoft and Intel.

At that time, Motorola was the leader in chip design. In 1994, Apple began using PowerPC chips, which were jointly produced by Motorola and IBM. In the first few years, PowerPC chips were indeed faster than Intel chips. However, in 1997, Jobs was dissatisfied with the backward performance of PowerPC chips, which hindered Apple's computer performance. So he decisively replaced Motorola and started a pleasant cooperation with Intel.

Motorola, which was defeated by Intel, had to temporarily give up the personal computer market and turn to wireless communications, digital signal processing and other fields.

Qualcomm

In 2005, Apple was quietly developing the first generation of iPhone. When selecting a baseband chip supplier, Apple thought of Qualcomm, so it applied for a baseband chip sample from Qualcomm. However, it received a letter from Qualcomm, requiring Apple and Qualcomm to sign a patent agreement on communication protocols before Qualcomm would consider providing chips to Apple. Moreover, the patent agreement required by Qualcomm not only included charging Apple patent fees, but also required Apple to reverse license its patents to Qualcomm.

Qualcomm's aggressive attitude prevented Apple from choosing Qualcomm's baseband chip, but instead chose Infineon's product for use in the first generation iPhone.

However, there is hardly any 3G baseband chip better than Qualcomm in the world. With the launch of iPhone 3G supporting CDMA series networks in 2008, the iPhone series began to introduce Qualcomm's baseband chips.

Starting with the iPhone 4s in 2011, Apple began to use Qualcomm's baseband chips in all its models, and Qualcomm became Apple's exclusive baseband chip supplier.

iPhone 4S, the first Apple phone to fully use Qualcomm baseband

Image source: Zhongguancun Online

Apple has always recognized Qualcomm's products, and the two sides cooperated until 2016. Qualcomm's licensing fees, which were getting higher and higher every year, made Apple overwhelmed. So starting from January 2017, Apple and Qualcomm sued each other one after another . Qualcomm believed that Apple used Qualcomm's patented technology in the field of mobile phone chips, but the fee paid was too low, so it asked for a price increase, while Apple believed that Qualcomm's patent royalties were too high and completely unrealistic. The two sides fell into a vicious cycle of litigation and counter-litigation.

During this period, Intel became the only baseband chip supplier for the iPhone, but Intel's baseband chips were not powerful enough, so in April 2019, Apple had to reach a settlement with Qualcomm.

In order to get rid of Qualcomm's restrictions and further strengthen its voice in the supply chain, Apple has only one way to go, which is to be self-reliant. Last year, Apple announced that it would develop its own 5G baseband chip.

magination

If the supplier's chip products are not as good as Apple's own solutions, they are likely to be replaced by Apple.

Imagination is a GPU giant and a long-time partner of Apple. It has been the GPU IP provider for Apple's A-series processors since 2007. Until April 2017, Imagination announced that Apple would no longer use the company's technology in the next 15 months to 2 years. This news also caused Imagination's stock price to plummet, and it was eventually forced to sell to the fund Canon Bridge in September 2017.

Also in September 2017, Apple used its own GPU on its new generation A11 chip. In 2018, Apple began to use its own graphics chips, or GPUs, on iPhone 8 and iPhoneX, and gradually got rid of Imagination.

After being "abandoned" by Apple, Imagination immediately accused Apple of "unauthorized use of its confidential information and intellectual property." However, due to the huge size difference between the two companies, Imagination's counterattack ultimately came to nothing.

According to a report by US media Mac Rumors in October 2016, Apple has poached several researchers from Imagination. LinkedIn data shows that at that time, 25 important members of Imagination, including the COO, vice president of hardware engineering, senior software engineering manager, and 6 senior R&D personnel, jumped to Apple.

Apple’s release of its self-developed Arm-based Mac chip at WWDC20 also heralds the end of Apple and Intel’s 15-year collaboration in computers.

Why is Apple so willful?

It is not difficult to see that Apple has very high requirements for its suppliers. If the chip supplier fails to meet Apple's requirements, or if it is a company that Apple cannot control like Qualcomm, Apple will terminate its cooperation with the other party and start developing its own chips.

This WWDC20 also traced back to Apple's past in chip manufacturing. From the most well-known Apple A series processors, which are widely used in Apple's iPhone, iPad, TV and Homepod products, to the M series coprocessors for smart applications, the S series chips for Apple Watch smart watches, and the T series chips for MacBook Pro security and privacy protection. For more than a decade, Apple has continued to create and optimize research chips. In just ten years, Apple has delivered 2 billion system-on-chips (SoCs) and has designed and delivered billions of other chips.

Apple A series chips

Apple M series chips

Image source: Internet

Whether it is to get rid of the influence of others, achieve cost control, or to achieve software and hardware optimization that is more compatible with its own devices, Apple has an extraordinary obsession and persistence in developing its own chips.

However, developing one’s own chips is not as simple as imagined, and whether the product can cater to the market is even more unknown.

Well-known software professional Li Nan believes that there will be no big problems for ARM architecture to run on Mac OS, it just depends on whether Apple is willing to do so. He believes that Apple has tried to switch instruction sets and hardware many times and has not been greatly affected.

As long as the Mac's non-touch, touchpad-based interaction method remains unchanged, mac OS will be basically stable for users and will not affect the user experience much.

However, risks still exist. If the underlying system is not well arranged, it will eventually have to be rewritten. Li Nan believes that if Apple is willing to use ecological hegemony and require ecological developers to upgrade their software according to the requirements of the new ecology, otherwise it will be removed from the shelves, forcing ecological developers to upgrade, perhaps this problem will not be too big.

Therefore, although the impact on Apple may not be that great, there is still a risk. At least before 2021, in order not to affect the user experience, Apple will still use Intel's processor chips as a transitional solution to facilitate normal use by users.

In short, after Apple's self-developed products, it still takes a long time to adapt to the environment, and there are also some uncertainties involved.

Apple Mac and Intel chip "breakup" after 15 years is an important milestone in the field of self-developed computer chips. Apple's self-developed chips are not without difficulties, but we know that Apple has never stopped innovating, and Apple's self-developed road will not end.

Some of the information in this article comes from Xindongxi, Sohu Technology, Beijing Business Daily, Semiconductor Industry Observer, Jianwen VIP, Magic Iron World, Chongqing Morning Post, and Liu Kuang’s public account. It is for communication and learning purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. If you have any questions, please contact us at info@gsi24.com.

30+ pieces of information updated daily! Get the latest industry news!

340+ members have joined! Waiting for you