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> Apple, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Google all use Arm's designs and technology as a foundation for their own processor chips that power essentially all of today's
by why_only_15 3y ago
> Apple, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Google all use Arm's designs and technology as a foundation for their own processor chips that power essentially all of today's phones
My understanding was that Amazon/Qualcomm/Mediatek/Google use ARM's cores but that Apple had their own core design and just uses the ARM architecture under special license.
- dagmx 3y agoYep, though both Samsung and Qualcomm have tried custom cores in the past. Today Apple’s really the only major player doing their own core designs.
- andromeduck 3y agoFor compute, yeah - but Id be extremely surprised if there weren't half a dozen Cortex R or M cores lurking in the uncore. I'd also be surprised if they used custom cores for smaller chips like for airpods/airtags.
- float4 3y ago> I'd also be surprised if they used custom cores for smaller chips like for airpods/airtags. AirTags have an nRF52xxx SoC by Nordic. The only Apple silicon in them is the U1 UWB chip (which is also present in iPhone, HomePod, Watch, ...) which runs on a 16nm Cortex M4. Recent AirPods run on H1 / H2 SoCs though, which are custom Apple chips. Wouldn't be surprised if they are built around the E-cores from the iPhone SoC.
- minimaul 3y agoApple have actually been transitioning to their own tiny core called Chinook (from what I remember it's a tiny ARM64 microcontroller-sized core) running their RTKit.
- my123 3y agoTheir SoCs have quite a number of Cortex-M cores (and Cortex-R for some of them) despite the existence of Chinook.
- dontlaugh 3y agoIn the most technical sense of the word, the ISA is also a design.