Apple Macs running on Apple ARM CPUs coming in 2020

Ming-Chi Kuo: Apple Macs on Apple chips are coming in 2020, with Apple's self-driving electric car coming by 2025

Ming-Chi Kuo, the TF International Securities financial analyst rated as the most consistently accurate Apple watcher, has suggested that Apple is set to debut Macs running Apple's own in-housed designed ARM CPUs in 2020 or 2021.

The microprocessors will be built by TSMC, which will also provide the chips that Apple is planning for the Apple car. This will be launched some time between 2023 and 2025, according to Kuo, who made the forecasts in a research note to clients this week.

The note echoes a report from the Bloomberg newswire earlier this year, also indicating that Apple is planning to dump Intel for ARM, shifting the design for Mac CPUs in-house. According to Bloomberg, the project has been codenamed Kalamata and has been approved at the highest by senior executives at the company.

Kuo's research note was revealed by the specialist website 9to5Mac.

It also indicated that TSMC is already working with Apple on its "Advanced Driver Assistance Systems". Furthermore, Kuo also suggested that Apple is planning to bring Level 4 or even Level 5 fully autonomous self-driving vehicles to market - but that the processing power required will demand high-powered 3nm or, at least, 5nm CPUs to support it.

Apple's shift from Intel on its Macs and MacBooks has been mooted since at least 2012, as ARM processor designs closed the power gap between its mobile-focused devices and Intel's desktop and server CPUs. Back in 2015, microprocessor analyst Jim Turley also suggested that Apple was on the cusp of shifting from Intel to ARM.

However, that shift has been longer coming than expected, but the persistent rumours have refused to die.

While Apple's A-Series CPUs are based on ARM, the systems on a chip (SoC) and Systems in Package (SiP) processors combine the CPU with other computing components on a single physical package in order to save on both power consumption and space. Desktop PC CPUs, though, are designed more for power than power- or space-efficiency.

Apple started designing its own CPUs for mobile after acquiring fab-less chip designer PA Semiconductor in April 2008. The first Apple iPhone had been powered by a 32-bit Samsung ARM chip, combined with an Imagination Technologies PowerVR MBX Lite 3D GPU.

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