Apple has likely signed a massive licensing deal with ARM at the 'architectural license' level or an even more specialized deal because Apple is Apple. I'd thin

Apple has likely signed a massive licensing deal with ARM at the 'architectural license' level or an even more specialized deal because Apple is Apple. I'd think that Apple's signed a nice long contract because when Apple bought PA Semi and had goals to design their own chip which takes quite a long time. Also note that you can't just buy M1 chips off digikey. Apple only makes these chips for Apple's products, and their agreement may have included that Apple wouldn't become a chip vendor.