``Apple stops adopting Intel CPUs because the quality assurance of the Skylake architecture is bad,'' former Intel engineers claimed



At WWDC 2020 in 2020 , Apple announced that it will transition from a Mac with an Intel CPU to a Mac with an ARM-based in-house CPU, Apple Silicon . For the reason why Apple does not use Intel CPUs, former Intel engineer François Piednoel explains that 'Apple abandoned Intel because the quality of Intel CPUs of the Skylake microarchitecture is poor'.

Intel insider claims it finally lost Apple because Skylake QA'was abnormally bad' | PC Gamer
https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-skylake-why-apple-left/


So far, Apple has released a model equipped with Intel CPU on Mac. For example, the new Macbook Pro model just added in May 2020 is the model with the 10th generation Intel Core i5 or i7.

13-inch MacBook Pro-Space Gray-Apple (Japan)



However, Apple has announced that it will equip its Mac with its own ARM-based chips found in iPhones and iPads to unify the Mac with other Apple devices such as the iPhone and iPad. By making the CPU architecture the same, it will be possible to reproduce the same UX as iOS and iPad OS on macOS, and run iPhone applications and iPad applications directly on Mac.

Apple announces ``Apple Silicon'' migrating to proprietary processor on Mac, iPhone & iPad application can be used on Mac-GIGAZINE



However, Pied Noel said of Apple's claim, 'It makes perfect sense from a business and architectural perspective, but this is something Apple has been considering for a long time,' and said, 'Many of Intel's Skylake architectures. If it wasn't, Intel would have stayed on the Mac as is.' According to Piednoel, the reason why Apple stopped installing Intel CPUs was that the vulnerabilities were successively discovered in CPUs that adopted Intel's Skylake architecture.

In particular, the vulnerabilities 'Meltdown' and 'Specter' that were discovered in Intel CPUs in January 2018 were design flaws common to Intel x86 hardware and were found to be uncorrectable.

Fundamental design flaw discovered in Intel processor chip, need to update each OS-GIGAZINE



In 2019, a vulnerability 'MDS' that affects Intel CPUs since 2011 has been revealed.

Vulnerability ``MDS'' affecting almost all Intel processors since 2011 revealed-GIGAZINE



In addition, it was pointed out that 'manufacturing mode, which is a test function for Intel chips, was causing a vulnerability in MacBook.'

Possibility that ``manufacturing mode'' at the manufacturing stage of Intel chip caused vulnerability of MacBook-GIGAZINE



“This announcement of Apple Silicon at WWDC 2020 is a turning point for Apple. Apple has always been thinking about switching from Intel CPUs. It's the poor quality assurance of the Skylake generation.'

in Hardware, Posted by log1i_yk