By hmimcu 
Apple’s self-developed chip design began shortly after the first iPhone was launched in 2007, but it was not until the A4 processor of iPhone 4 was released in 2010 that Apple officially embarked on the path of self-developed chips. When the A6 processor was born, Apple’s iPhone was already a dominant presence. Subsequently, in 2013, Apple released the A7 with a brand new 64 bit design and Samsung’s 28nm manufacturing process, opening the door to the 64 bit era for mobile phone processors.
Afterwards, the A8, A9, and A10 generations further improved their core count and process technology, from 20nm to 16nm, respectively, and their performance also continued to rise. Afterwards, A11 was also known as the performance monster. A12-A16 has always adhered to the principle of using the latest and most advanced chip manufacturing processes. However, in the development of recent generations, it can be observed that the progress of the next generation of self-developed chips is gradually slowing down.
Many people attribute this result to Apple’s frequent personnel turnover in the past two years.
01
Serious brain drain at Apple
Since 2019, it is fitting to describe the current situation of talent loss at Apple in the past three years with the phrase ‘house leaks are prone to continuous night rain, ships are late and encountering headwinds’.
In February 2019, Gerard Williams III, the chief chip designer responsible for the development of A7 to A12X chips at Apple, left Apple. He was the chief architect of Apple’s previous iPhone core processors and M1 series. At the same time as he left, he took away several key chip engineers. Subsequently, he co founded a new company, Nuvia, with the main business of developing processors for data centers.
In the same year, Apple included ARM Chief Architect Mike Filippo as the Architecture Director of Apple’s self-developed M1 chip, succeeding Gerard Williams III. Later this year, Mike Filippo left Microsoft to work on processor development.
In December 2021, Jeff Wilcox, the M1 chip design director who had worked at Apple for over 8 years, also announced his departure from Apple and his return to Intel. Subsequently, Jeff Wilcox publicly held a position at Intel as CTO of the design engineering team, leading the development of client SoC.
In addition to the changes of these three generals, Meta, which also lays out the metaverse, is fiercely competing with Apple in the fields of augmented reality and virtual reality headwear devices, and smartwatches. In 2021, it poached approximately 100 engineers from Apple’s augmented reality, artificial intelligence, software, and hardware departments.
Recently, according to the foreign media The Information, Apple’s chip division is experiencing severe talent loss, with engineers and executives leaving in search of better opportunities and improved working conditions. Johnny Srouji, Senior Vice President of Apple Hardware Technology, expressed concern about this issue. In order to prevent talent loss, Apple has launched more than one internal speech emphasizing the risks of switching to startups. With Apple ensuring stability and high returns, and weighing the pros and cons, we look forward to retaining more executives and engineers.
02
The Impact of Brain Drain on Apple
Internally: GPU development crisis, processor performance improvement becoming increasingly slow.
After the release of the iPhone 14 in 2022, A16 chip was subjected to multiple rounds of roast. According to GB5 data obtained from Geek Bay, compared with A15, the CPU single core performance of A16 chip has been improved from 1741 to 1882 by about 8.1%, while the multi-core performance has only been improved by about 10%, and the Peak Performance of GPU has not been improved, only improving the energy efficiency a little. Although the CPU advantage of A16 still exists compared to the Android flagship, especially in terms of single core performance leading by more than one generation, its advantage in GPU is no longer present.
According to foreign media reports, the A16 biomimetic chip originally planned to be included in the iPhone 14Pro series will have ray tracing function. This was feasible in the initial software simulation testing, but encountered an unsolvable problem in the later stage of chip development: power consumption exceeded expectations. The industry expects Apple A17 to adopt TSMC’s 3nm process, which is expected to reduce power consumption and solve heat dissipation issues. At the same time, GPU core will incorporate ray tracing technology.
Due to the slowdown in the development of A-series chips, the performance improvement of Apple processors in the past few years has been very small. Each improvement is actually mainly due to improvements in chip manufacturing processes, rather than Apple’s chip design. Dylan Patel, Chief Analyst of SemiAnalysis, a research company, said. Since Gerard Williams III left, Apple’s processor performance growth has significantly slowed down
External: Intel, Qualcomm Accelerated Processor Chip Development
In mid-2021, Intel unveiled its processor roadmap for the next five years, as well as new chip and packaging technologies, in an online live streaming event. Intel claims to regain its dominant position in the processor industry by 2025. Intel’s urgent attitude towards restoring its home position in the processor industry can also be seen by poaching Apple chip director Jeff Wilcox for its design engineering.
In early 2021, Nuvia was acquired by Qualcomm for $1.4 billion, along with the talent resources of Nuvia’s three co founders and over 100 Apple engineers, including Gerard Williams III, the “Chief Architect” of Apple M1. Having Nuvia’s Qualcomm greatly enhances its ARM self-developed architecture design capabilities. At present, the performance gap between Apple’s A-series processors and Qualcomm Snapdragon processors is narrowing, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 has even caught up with Apple in multi-core performance.
Although personnel turnover is one of the reasons for the slower self-development speed of Apple’s A-series chips, there are still many other influencing factors.
03
Other influencing factors
Apple chip enters conventional optimization
When introducing the A15 chip, Apple once said: The true uniqueness of Apple’s design lies in that we do not simply come up with a super powerful chip and create various functions around it. Instead, we will start with an inspiration to create a wonderful user experience for you, and then work together to turn it into reality.
The scale of A-series chips has now reached a certain level. Taking A15 as an example, it has surpassed its competitors by 30%+in terms of CPU and GPU. On the one hand, further research and development is limited by the current technological level, and on the other hand, apart from the chip itself, Apple’s demand for performance improvement is also strong, and its software demand will not stop. In contrast, better interface interaction and stronger intelligence can bring returns that are greater than the continuous improvement of chip power.
The pace of process improvement has slowed down
The reason why Apple’s A-series processors can lead the Android camp by one or two generations is partly due to Apple’s powerful chip design capabilities, and partly because Apple has always been using the latest and most advanced chip manufacturing processes. Thanks to TSMC’s OEM support, Apple’s self-developed chips have made great strides and gained more autonomy in the supply chain. However, as TSMC’s process technology enters 3nm, the pace of process innovation is also slowing down, and the cost of OEM has continued to rise, now reaching as high as $20000. Currently, only apples can afford such expensive new processes. Continuing to develop like this means that Apple will have to increase product costs and further compress its profit margin. For Apple, which pursues maximum profit, this clearly does not conform to its business logic.
Since Apple’s pace of self-developed chips has slowed down, will there be any changes in its chip business in the future?
04
What is the next step for Apple chips?
Center of gravity or transfer to AR/VR head display
In early 2021, Apple announced that Dan Riccio, the head of hardware engineering, would be transferred to a new position, and it was later verified that the focus area would be AR/VR head displays. Recently, Dan Howley, an analyst at Yahoo Finance, stated in an interview that Apple will launch VR/AR head display devices in the second half of 2023. He said that Apple’s head display will be one of the most advanced in the industry and should defeat Meta’s Oculus 2 and Sony’s upcoming PlayStation VR2. He said that compared to the concept of the metaverse, Apple tends to provide AR/VR immersive experiences.
Previously, Tian Feng Securities analyst Guo Mingqi released a report stating that Apple’s AR head display will be equipped with a “desktop level” chip with performance comparable to M1 and a Sony 4K Mirco OLED display screen. The goal is to replace the iPhone within 10 years, with an expected shipment of over 1 billion units.
Apple obtained 11 patents related to AR head displays in 2021 alone, and since 2013, it has successively acquired more than ten companies related to the AR field, including sensors, AR software, AR content ecology, and even AR lenses. It can be seen that Apple has had a long history and high expectations in the AR/VR head display field.
Concentrate on improving Mac chips
Apple may slow down the improvement speed of iPhone chips and focus on developing Mac chips.
In the past year and a half, Apple has launched five main types of Mac chips, from M1 to M1 Ultra and then to M2. But Apple’s senior whistleblowing expert Mark? Mark Gurman predicts that in the next year or so, Apple will launch more products, including M2 Pro, M2 Max, M2 Ultra, and M3.
The M-series chips adopt ARM architecture. According to the latest research by Strategy Analytics, a data statistics firm, in the ARM architecture notebook processor market in 2021, Apple took almost 90% of its revenue with the M1 series alone. The M1 chip is not only used on the Mac, but also on the iPad Pro 2021, with a performance improvement of over 50% compared to the previous generation of the iPad Pro, refreshing the speed of iPad history.
Now Apple is taking action to integrate its chip business, including choosing to install Mac chips in iPads and upcoming Hybrid Reality (MR) helmets. For example, Apple’s first AR/VR head display or flagship chip M2, supporting 16GB of memory. The company will also use Apple Watch chips in HomePod. This means that there will no longer be a need to develop specialized chips for iPads, head displays, and HomePods in the future, and the application range of M-series chips will also be wider.
05
epilogue
Recently, the parameters of the A17 chip were exposed, and the Apple A17 biomimetic chip will be produced using TSMC’s latest 3nm process and integrated with Qualcomm 5G chips. It is said that due to the resignation of the Apple chip chief designer, the performance and architecture of the Apple A17 biomimetic chip will mainly be modified by the Apple A16 biomimetic chip, and will still use a 6-core architecture CPU, with a greater focus on energy optimization and battery life. In other words, there will be no significant optimization in the performance of the A17, But there will be better performance in terms of energy consumption.
Apple has already taken a significant advantage in the mobile ecosystem field, relying on the powerful performance to power ratio of M-series and A-series chips, as well as Apple’s unique interconnected ecosystem. It is not yet known whether A17 will be surpassed by Qualcomm in the future. But the multi billion dollar patent settlement agreement between Apple and Qualcomm is also about to expire. In 2023, when a century patent litigation war begins between Apple and Qualcomm, it is likely that this is also something that is currently causing Apple panic.