Apple may be exploring the possibility of using an open-source alternative to the Arm architecture, which it's been using in its products for decades.
According to a newly posted job alert, spotted by Tom's Hardware, Apple is looking for an engineer that specializes in RISC-V, an open-source architecture instruction set that allows device makers to build their own chips without having to pay a license or royalty. Apple currently uses the Arm architecture in its products, and it pays the company a royalty fee to use its instruction set.
Apple's job posting description states that the engineer will implement "innovative RISC-V solutions and state of the art routines" to Apple's products. Specifically, Apple hopes prospective engineers will be able to work with the RISC-V instruction set, as well as have an understanding of Arm.
Tom's Hardware theorizes that if Apple were to adopt the open-source instruction set of RISC-V, it may save the company money because it wouldn't need to pay Arm a license fee for its instruction set.
Every Arm core requires Apple to pay a licensing fee to Arm, and since the number of cores for things like SSD controllers and smartwatches will only increase, so will Apple's payments to Arm. As such, replacing at least some Arm cores with RISC-V cores could save Apple millions of dollars in royalty payments every year...
The job listing is a confirmation that Apple is exploring the use of RISC-V, but whether the company decides to implement the open-source technology remains to be seen. Apple's reliance on Arm has increased in the past year as Apple is in the process of switching its Mac lineup to Arm-based processors rather than Intel.
Pretty much everyone has joined the RISC-V camp after the tech/trade war began, especially China. Western companies don't want to be limited in their potential customers. Alibaba, Loongson, Red Hat, even MIPS has gone RISC-V.
Even though the NVIDIA acquisition of ARM will probably never complete, Apple is smart to begin investing in RISC-V.
Alternatives, sure... but Apple plus open source? Yeah, right
What do you mean? Apple is heavily invested into open source, their platform is in fact built on open source initiatives. For example, virtually every modern browser today traces its codebase to WebKit, an open source browser engine developed by Apple. LLVM, one of the most used compiler frameworks, was built on Apples money.
RISC-V is nowhere close to being used in high-performance personal devices. It’s a great teaching platform and it has uses in low-end devices, but that’s about it. There is a lot of work to be done before it becomes a viable alternative to ARM64. But I could see Apple using it for secure coprocessors or something like that.
Also, Apple has an unlimited architecture license agreement with ARM. If they switch architectures again, it won’t be before 10-15 years.
Well, this was inevitable considering how much Apple hates Nvidia (who bought out ARM) over its graphics chip debacle while back. They do not want to pay Nvidia a single cent going forward and going with open source method will likely bring more chip innovation for the company.
U.S. chipmaker and Apple supplier Qualcomm has told regulators around the world that it opposes Nvidia's $40 billion proposed acquisition of Arm, according to CNBC.
Qualcomm has registered an objection to Nvidia's acquisition of Arm with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the European Commission, the UK Competition and Markets Authority, and China's State Administration for Market...
Tuesday September 14, 2021 4:16 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Macs powered by Apple silicon do not support Windows and there is no Boot Camp feature like there is on Intel Macs, but support for Windows is a feature that many users would like to see.
However, Microsoft has dampened hopes that Windows will ever work on Apple silicon, saying that running an Arm version of Windows 11 on M1 Macs, via virtualization or otherwise, is not "a supported...
Thursday September 9, 2021 7:51 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
VMware Fusion is now available as a private tech preview for M1 Macs, with users able to request access through an online form. A public tech preview will follow in around two weeks, according to a tweet from VMware Fusion manager Michael Roy.
VMware Fusion for M1 Macs will be quite limited in scope, with a focus on virtualizing Arm-based Linux distributions. VMware Fusion will not...
Thursday October 7, 2021 3:16 pm PDT by Juli Clover
The 10 year anniversary of Steve Jobs death took place earlier this week, sparking tech leaders to share their stories of Apple's former CEO.
Dell CEO Michael Dell spoke to CNET, reminiscing about the time that Steve Jobs aimed to get Dell to license Mac OS to run on Intel-based PCs and how that might have changed the PC industry.
As the story goes, Jobs first approached Dell about a...
Wednesday September 1, 2021 9:36 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
After unveiling its latest Pixel 6 smartphones with a custom Arm-based Google Tensor chip last month, Google is also developing its own Arm-based processors for future Chromebook laptops and tablets, according to Nikkei Asia. Google plans to roll out its own processors for Chromebooks in around 2023, according to the report. Chromebooks are laptops, tablets, and detachable devices that run...
Friday October 15, 2021 3:12 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Parallels Desktop 17.1 for Mac has ">just been released, offering improved support for Windows 11 virtual machines and added stability via the default implementation of Virtual Trusted Platform Modules (vTPMs) for "all future and past Windows 11 VMs." Parallels 17.1 also fully supports macOS Monterey as a host OS and improves the user experience when running macOS Monterey in a VM on M1 Macs. ...
Monday October 18, 2021 12:16 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Though Apple announced its M1 Pro chip with a 10-core CPU at today's event, it turns out there is a lower-tier option available for the middle-tier 14-inch MacBook Pro.
The most affordable $1,999 M1 Pro machine features an 8-core CPU and a 14-core GPU rather than a 10-core CPU and 16-core GPU. The version with a 10-core CPU and 16-core GPU is actually priced starting at $2,499.
Because...
Tuesday October 5, 2021 10:29 am PDT by Eric Slivka
A number of banks are currently pressuring Visa to make changes to the way it processes some payments made via Apple Pay, moves that would reduce the fees the banks pay to Apple for certain transactions, reports The Wall Street Journal.
At the heart of the issue are automatic recurring payments like memberships and streaming services. Visa is aiming to change the way it issues tokens for...
Monday October 18, 2021 1:18 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Just after Apple's event introducing the new MacBook Pro models with M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, the first benchmark for the high-end M1 Max chip with 10-core CPU and 32-core GPU appears to have surfaced.
The chip features a single-core score of 1749 and a multi-core score of 11542, which offers double the multi-core performance of the M1 chip that's in the 13-inch MacBook Pro machine.
Based ...
Thursday October 7, 2021 1:00 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
In response to the Epic Games vs. Apple ruling last month, payments platform Paddle today announced that it plans to launch an alternative in-app payment system for iOS that replaces Apple's in-app purchase mechanism.
In an emailed press release, Paddle described its payment system as a "true like-for-like, drop-in replacement" for Apple's in-app purchase mechanism, allowing developers to...
Top Rated Comments
Even though the NVIDIA acquisition of ARM will probably never complete, Apple is smart to begin investing in RISC-V.
Also, Apple has an unlimited architecture license agreement with ARM. If they switch architectures again, it won’t be before 10-15 years.
The deal is not through yet though.