Apple continues to reinforce its chip design division: it recently hired Mike Filippo, who has a ten-year history at Arm, as well as working at Intel and AMD. Filippo was involved in the design of processors, and his contribution was particularly significant at Arm, where he was in charge of the development of various architectures.
There has been a talk for years of Apple’s intention to switch to proprietary chips even for its Mac computers, after the success in mobile – the Apple A and Ax are the “heart” of the iPhone and iPad, and among the most powerful chips at the moment of their release; Apple also produces processors for its smartwatches. For the desktop world, however, the Cupertino company has so far failed to break away from Intel.
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The new developments cannot definitively confirm the arrival of a MacBook with a proprietary processor, but there is no doubt now that Apple is working hard to achieve this goal – which could materialize already next year. Filippo has experience in the design of mobile and desktop chips and he can play a very important role in Apple new projects.
Apple’s move makes a lot of sense – if that’s indeed what it’s doing. The company has been vocal about how its reliance on Intel hardware hasn’t been ideal. Earlier this year, Apple blamed Intel’s processor shortage for slump in Mac sales.
The fact that Intel’s processors have also been victim to high profile security vulnerabilities may also have cemented Apple’s decision to build its own processor.
