Apple Industries has suddenly decided to leave Intel processors in favor of ARM (Advanced RISC Machines)-based chips in its line of
(i) MacBooks and
(ii) MacBook Pros, a new report claims.
Citing anonymous sources, technology news site SemiAccurate is reporting that Apple's move is already "a done deal." However, the company won't be bringing ARM chips to its devices anytime soon.
According to SemiAccurate, its sources say that the move won't happen for two or three years, potentially coinciding with Nvidia's release of its Project Denver CPUs. Those ARM-based processors are being developed for everything from PCs to servers and supercomputers, Nvidia said earlier this year. They will be integrated on the same chip as the company's GPU.
Of course, there are some potential issues with Apple moving away from Intel-based chips. For one, the company would need to deal with software incompatibility issues that might arise. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, ARM-based chips have yet to prove themselves in the PC market--a space where Intel has been performing extremely well. ARM chips have, however, become the go-to options for smartphone and tablet vendors.
That said, ARM chips could be poised for serious growth in the PC market. Just yesterday, research firm IDC said that it expects ARM to own 13 percent of the PC processor market by 2015.
