The engineer said that Intel sold the technologies applied in the first MacBook Air to Apple’s competitors
Former Intel engineer Zheng Li, who was involved in developing the processor for the first MacBook Air, told Loup TV in an interview about how Apple created the first chip.
It was also revealed to me that Intel was selling the technologies implemented in this chip to competitors of its partners (Dell and HP).
Lee was a member of a separate team of engineers at Intel that worked directly with Apple to develop the processor for Apple’s first slim laptop, the MacBook Air.
Intel specialists spent two years creating a processor according to Apple’s specifications, and none of them knew where to use it.
The only thing they knew was that it was a processor for a very thin device, and it should have high performance.
The team had access to Apple’s closed resources and design solutions. Intel engineers in the process of current work could not share their developments and distribute certain information about the new chip even within the company.
However, Apple could not force Intel to stop the spread of this technology to other manufacturers of ultra-thin laptops – Dell and HP.
Intel, some time after receiving chip prototypes for the MacBook Air, started offering similar technology to other manufacturers.
Apple, during this cooperation with Intel, in addition to releasing a new revolutionary ultrabook, received a half-year or a year’s head start over its competitors, until they, too, started selling similar computer solutions.
In addition, the engineers who were on the team to create a processor for the MacBook Air worked on developing mobile processors for Dell or HP.
They didn’t have digital recordings or access to these Apple designs, but many moments from their work were etched in their minds.
He explained to me that this situation was the first wake-up call for Apple, as the company started thinking about creating its own processor.
Lee added that it will now be difficult for Apple’s competitors to quickly and efficiently implement technology similar to the M1 chipset, as there is no middle link to replicate it and he concluded that the new MacBook Air with the M1 is just the beginning of a new era of powerful, independent computers that other manufacturers will release in a few years.
On June 22, 2020, at the 31st WWDC 2020 Developer Conference, Tim Cook announced a landmark event – Apple will use ARM processors in Macs. This is the third architectural change in the company’s history.
At the end of June of this year, former Intel engineer François Piednoel (François Piednoel) said that one of the main reasons for Apple’s transition to ARM is the big problems with the quality of processors based on the Skylake microarchitecture.
On November 10, 2020, Apple introduced the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 13 and Mac mini on the new M1 ARM processors.
