Posted on 06/09/2020 12:36:32 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Apple is preparing to announce a shift to its own Apple-designed ARM-based main processors in Mac computers, replacing chips from Intel, as early as this month at WWDC 2020 which begins on June 22nd, Bloomberg News reports, citing “people familiar with the plans.”
(Excerpt) Read more at macdailynews.com ...
The Commodore Amiga was the greatest computer ever made.
I’ve been using one in an FPGA-based system (check out the MiSTer project for more info if you are interested ... I’m a HW snob and need the precision of a hardware emulation (for lack of better terms)).
I would LOVE to have an original one, but I have enough retro-electronics :-).
Plus LOTS and LOTS of other Commodore goodies.
Notice the username. Just upgraded my Amiga 2000 with a vampire board.
In a head to head word processing test, the C64 beat the PC all hollow. It was about ten times faster on search and replace on the same document. Better programming due to the programmers had to create very tight code on the C64. PC coders were sloppy.
Apple is designing its own custom processors, which are fabricated by TSMC. This is just bad reporting. Apple has always been part of the ARM consortium, and the Apple A-series processors are based on the ARM architecture.
Apple uses its A series processors for its iPhones and iPads. These processors are based on ARM architecture. The latest version of these have tested more powerful and faster than the Intel processors in the lowest priced MacBook Pro, while using less energy.
I wonder if Parallels will still work with it?
I gotta have Win7 and Win10.
Thanks, Sword,
Ed
There’s a Windows version for ARM processors. So should be possible.
The Maci is dead. The iPad is its successor.
I think they’re down to 5nm now.
And yea, I’ve been very impressed with Apple’s silicon work. They been working it since Newton days. ARM exists because of Apple.
Interesting Sword. We’ll probably know for sure shortly.
Ya know, I used to have a couple of posters of CPUs. It looked like an otherworldly city. Did a search for some good sized graphics of that on the web a few months ago, and didn’t really find as much as I’d expected.
An awful lot of people (myself included on four different Macs) use VMware fusion to run Win10 or Linux in a VM on the Mac.
Is Apple going to claim that their ARM-based machines are so blindingly fast and perfectly accurate that they can emulate an Intel CPU and run Windows or Linux at the same speed (or better) than the Intel Macs.
Color me skeptical, but we won't know until we get there.
Granted, Linux can be compiled for ARM. And Microsoft is going to release an ARM Win10, no word on application compatibility of course. But a lot of people have existing VMs that they've configured and used and installed applications on, and we don't want to have to rebuild them.
It would be extremely disappointing if the ARM machines don't support existing Intel VMs.
Any thoughts, opinions, speculations?
I was actually in error with my comment above. Current production is 5nm.
TSMC on track for 3nm Apple ‘A16’ chips in 2022
Tuesday, June 9, 2020 2:13 pmApple-supplier TSMC continues to move right along with its manufacturing processes. The Taiwan-based high-end chip foundry maintains that its 3nm fab project remains on schedule, ready for risk production in 2021 followed by volume production in the second half of 2022.
TSMC has already entered volume production for 5nm node, and it is reportedly developing variants for the 5nm process… including a further enhanced 5nm node in addition to 5nm Plus, according to sources at IC inspection services companies and chipmaking materials suppliers.Malcolm Owen for AppleInsider:
TSMC working on 3nm chipsIf accurate, and based on typical iPhone production schedules, this could lead to the Apple-designed A15 at the absolute earliest or more realistically, the A16 chip in 2022 using the process.It is thought Apple is using TSMC’s 5nm processes to create the next generation of A-series chips destined for the “iPhone 12” tentatively titled the “A14,” with production scheduled for mid-2020. In April, it was reported Apple increased its chip order for the fourth quarter of 2020, potentially due to an anticipated higher demand for the annual iPhone refresh.
TSMC is also intending to move some of its chip production to the United States, in a factory in Arizona thought to cost $12 billion… with construction commencing in 2021 and chip production expected to start in 2024… [offering] the prospect of some A-series chips being made on U.S. soil. MacDailyNews Take: Amazingly, the reductions in silicon transistors keep on coming in regular intervals:
MacDailyNews Take: Amazingly, the reductions in silicon transistors keep on coming in regular intervals:
I can only quote Sergeant Schultz of "Hogan’s Heroes". . . "I know Nothing!"
If you have the original white-capped MOS 6502 CPU, hold onto it; worth thousands. People were cannibalizing arcade machines looking for those chips to restore Apple-1 computers.
The Amiga was at least 10 years ahead of its time. There are things the Amiga did PC’s still can't do today.
My Amiga 3000 had nine co-processors in it to handle specific tasks. I almost cried when I threw it in a dumpster heading to recycling several years ago as part of a general clearance of old computers from my warehouse.
I used to run Mac software on the Amiga 500 faster than it would run on Mac hardware with an identical speed and clocked Motorola processor. It usually ran about 25% faster.
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