Apple on Monday formalized the beginning of its departure from Intel x86 machine architecture for its Mac computers. Apple makes up to 4 percent of Intel's annual CPU sales, according to a MarketWatch report. Apple is now scaling up its own A-series SoCs that use Arm CPU cores, up to performance levels relevant to Macs, and has implemented support for not just new and upcoming software ported to the new Arm machine architecture, but also software over form the iOS and iPadOS ecosystems on Mac, starting with its MacOS "Big Sur" operating system. We reached out to Intel for some of its first comments on the development.

In a comment to TechPowerUp, an Intel spokesperson said "Apple is a customer across several areas of our business, and we will continue to support them. Intel remains focused on delivering the most advanced PC experiences and a wide range of technology choices that redefine computing. We believe Intel-powered PCs—like those based on our forthcoming Tiger Lake mobile platform—provide global customers the best experience in the areas they value most, as well as the most open platform for developers, both today and into the future."As we mentioned earlier, Apple only makes up a single-digit percentage of Intel's annual sales, and the loss of sales to Apple could mean more silicon that, in our opinion, Intel could divert to the DIY channel. Over the past two years, Intel was embattled with shortages in the DIY retail channel as the OEM channel soaked up the bulk of its silicon allocation.

Could Intel have done more to retain Apple? To begin answering this question, one must dig into possible reasons behind Apple's departure from Intel. Apple's industrial design, since the revolutionary MacBook (2016), has been toward thinner devices with more battery life, lesser compute on the client-end, and more on the cloud. The company sees a future in devices with iPad-like always-on availability, and battery life running into dozens of hours. Apple wants greater control over what its suppliers provide, to attain these goals.

While Intel has managed to bring SoC TDP down to 7 W thru 15 W with its 10 nm U-segment processors, these processors appear to be falling short of Apple's performance/Watt requirements. An example of chip design control Apple expects from its hardware suppliers can be found with AMD. The Sunnyvale-based firm supplies Apple with its most efficient bins of Radeon GPUs, and in cases such as the "Navi 12," Pro 5500, and Pro W5700X, even reserves graphics SKUs exclusive to Apple (not sold to its AIB channel).

In our opinion, Intel could have done more to retain Apple. The engineering department certainly rose to the occasion, developing "Lakefield." While performance numbers are still under the wraps, "Lakefield" is the kind of chip one would expect in an Apple portable - an extremely power-efficient client-segment processor capable of sub 1-Watt idle, high burst performance, and great customization flexibility thanks to its Foveros Packaging that lets system designers pick and choose the I/O components they want specific to their designs. On the other hand, the business-end of Intel may have fumbled with Apple. If designing chips that match Apple's requirements didn't work, Intel could have used the nuclear option - of pitching the x86 machine architecture itself.

Since its inception, Intel has licensed the x86 machine architecture to over a dozen companies. There are currently only two active licensees - AMD and VIA. The rest either withered away, or consolidated (VIA consolidated CenTaur and CYRIX). There have been no new licensees in at least the past 15 years (not if you don't count the sub-licensing of Zhaoxin by VIA or to THATIC by AMD). Apple could have been the first new x86 licensee in a generation, and with a little assistance, could have developed its own x86 SoCs. Apple pays for Unix in the era of Linux, and it would have surely indulged a well-crafted license deal with Intel.

Apple's departure from x86, despite amounting to a paltry percentage of Intel's sales, could reshape the client-computing segment. In our opinion, the success of the Arm machine architecture on Macs presents a greater threat to Intel than even x86 licensee AMD, as it could trigger other semiconductor firms with deep pockets and Arm licenses, such as NVIDIA and Samsung, to develop "high performance" Arm SoCs of their own, for thin-and-light notebooks. The "Wintel" era is long gone, and Microsoft is only too happy to indulge and grow its Windows-on-Arm ecosystem.

The future of Intel's client-segment silicon looks increasingly similar to that of Arm. Highly modular IP blocks, including from third-parties, integrate on innovative new packaging formats, such as Foveros, with an overwhelming focus on performance/Watt, thanks to hybrid cores, idle power-draw, battery life, and performance in bursts. A lot is riding on the success of the tiny "Lakefield."