14 DAY TRIAL // Custom ARM chips seem to be the next big thing in tech, and the debut of Apple Silicon appears to be the event that produced this new trend.
Microsoft itself has been committed to ARM chips for quite a while, with Windows 10 on ARM improving gradually with every new release, but Apple unveiling the M1 chip was seen by many that investing in custom processors is the right way to go in the long term.
So theoretically, two tech giants, Microsoft and Apple, are now spearheading the push for custom ARM chips, and right, it looks like both of them have ambitious plans in this regard.
Apple Silicon and what it’s capable of
Apple announced the M1 chip with much fanfare in November, and its capabilities have already surprised pretty much everyone. The Cupertino-based tech giant claims the new processor unleashes an important boost of power, all while being more power-efficient, and this is exactly what Microsoft itself has been aiming for with its ARM strategy too.
“As a system on a chip (SoC), M1 combines numerous powerful technologies into a single chip, and features a unified memory architecture for dramatically improved performance and efficiency. M1 is the first personal computer chip built using cutting-edge 5-nanometer process technology and is packed with an astounding 16 billion transistors, the most Apple has ever put into a chip,” Apple says.
“It features the world’s fastest CPU core in low-power silicon, the world’s best CPU performance per watt, the world’s fastest integrated graphics in a personal computer, and breakthrough machine learning performance with the Apple Neural Engine. As a result, M1 delivers up to 3.5x faster CPU performance, up to 6x faster GPU performance, and up to 15x faster machine learning, all while enabling battery life up to 2x longer than previous-generation Macs. With its profound increase in performance and efficiency, M1 delivers the biggest leap ever for the Mac.”
It's believed Apple is already working on an evolution of the M1 chip, and a new project called M1X is currently prepared, possibly with a 2021 release date.
Microsoft’s investments in ARM
In the meantime, Microsoft isn’t just sitting and watching Apple having fun in the ARM world. The company has previously worked with Qualcomm to build custom SQ chips for the ARM-powered Surface, and now it looks like the company is ready to push the whole thing to a new level.
Like Apple, Microsoft wants to build its own chip for Surface products and servers, thus reducing the reliance on Intel and eventually obtaining more control over the processor.
This is something that makes perfect sense for Microsoft, especially as the company has become fully committed to the hardware industry. The Surface lineup of products is already a mature portfolio, and by investing in a custom ARM chip Microsoft can bring substantial improvements in terms of performance and efficiency, especially because it’s also the company developing the operating system powering the whole experience.
Pretty much like Apple, so at some level, the strategies of the two companies are very similar.
How Microsoft and Apple would continue to focus on ARM chips is something that’ll be interesting to watch, but there’s no doubt the efforts made by these two will also be reason enough for other OEMs to start looking into similar projects too.
With CES projected to take place next month, expect more news in this regard to be shared, and AMD could be one of the companies to release an announcement in this regard. The company is also believed to be working on its own ARM-based chip, with the details to be revealed next month.