When I first read this, I thought "old news." Then I realized that most of Apple's custom IC development work I rememeber was during the 68k and PPC eras. Sin

When I first read this, I thought "old news." Then I realized that most of Apple's custom IC development work I rememeber was during the 68k and PPC eras. Since Apple migrated to Intel, they've been using third-party provided "north/south bridge" chips and BIOS hardware (albeit a less commonly used version.) Being a hardware focused company, rather than software, doing this kind of design work in house has historically been first nature to them.