AMD’s CEO, dr. Lisa Su, sat down with journalists during a speech at CES 2021 on Tuesday and asked several questions, including a request to comment on Apple’s first foray into the computer processing space.
Su addressed a number of questions regarding AMD’s upcoming plans, the x86 platform and new developments in a highly competitive semiconductor market.
Dr. Ian Cutress van AnandTech focused on the rise of ARM processor designs. According to Cutress, ARM models are expected to significantly improve computer performance in the coming years and may begin to dominate the area held by x86 manufacturers such as AMD and Intel. ARM silicone is commonly used in specialized implementations such as servers, but the chip design is now starting to appear in consumer products.
Apple, for example, introduced the M1 chip in the late 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and Mac mini models. The tech giant plans to have its entire range of Macs working on custom ARM chips within two years. It provides an immediate loss of revenue for current CPU partner Intel, but also creates wind for the larger x86 market.
Su was asked how the M1 would affect AMD’s relationship with Apple.
“The M1 is more about how much processing and innovation there is in the market. It’s an opportunity to innovate more in hardware and software, and it goes beyond the ISA,” Su said. “From our point of view, there is still innovation in the PC space – we have many choices and people can use the same processors in many different environments. We expect to see more specialization as we move forward over the next few years, and this “But Apple continues to work with us as its graphics partner, and we work with them.”
Apple relies on AMD’s Radeon graphics cards to power high-end devices like the MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac Pro, but that may change with a move toward internal solutions. M1 Macs integrate Tile Based Deferred Rendering (TBDR) graphics cores on a system-on-chip design similar to the A-series processors used in iPhone and iPad.
Although Apple is pleased with the integrated graphics for the initial M1 Mac computers, it is possible that the company is working on a dedicated GPU to better serve high-performance machines.
Apple’s transition to ARM is apparently putting pressure on the established companies. On Monday, Intel unveiled its upcoming Alder Lake disk series, which apparently takes a page from the Apple Silicon strategy book by extending use cases from mobile to desktop.