More recent research has shown that the slowdowns related to a chip family emulating another chip family are mostly, about 80% due to a fairly small number of instructions. Those instructions require software emulation, and are common in a large part of usage. But it’s about a dozen to two dozen instructions.

My thinking is that, from what I know, and I could be wrong here, individual chip instructions in hardware are not patented, or copyrighted, just the pattern of how a chip is organized, etc. If so, then Apple can take the dozen, or so, instructions that cause most of this slowdown, and incorporate them into their chip, in addition to the ARM instruction set, as they’re doing.

If they do, then however it’s done, the system could point the x86 software to those instructions rather than needing to emulate them in software, the way it’s been done. If Apple could do this, then an A series, or whatever Apple may choose to name this new series, might run native x86 software at the same speed as an equivalent x86. So the MacBook, for example, instead of using an Intel M series, could run an Apple SoC at the same level of processing power.

Over time, as Apple’s chips continue to increase their performance level, those chips could exceed these of x86 in the different categories the chips live in.

As far as higher performance chips go, Apple could always decide to increase the power envelope to better compete with these higher level chips. Apple does have the advantage, so far, of not having hardware 16 and 32 bit instructions on board. Whether that would prove an impediment to running older x86 software, or whether Apple could work that out with their more modern chips, I don’t know.

But I think this is an interesting take on the situation, and if possible, assuming Apple is looking at it, could solve these compatibility problems people are concerned about.

More recent research has shown that the slowdowns related to a chip family emulating another chip family are mostly, about 80% due to a fairly small number of instructions. Those instructions require software emulation, and are common in a large part of usage. But it’s about a dozen to two dozen instructions.

My thinking is that, from what I know, and I could be wrong here, individual chip instructions in hardware are not patented, or copyrighted, just the pattern of how a chip is organized, etc. If so, then Apple can take the dozen, or so, instructions that cause most of this slowdown, and incorporate them into their chip, in addition to the ARM instruction set, as they’re doing.

If they do, then however it’s done, the system could point the x86 software to those instructions rather than needing to emulate them in software, the way it’s been done. If Apple could do this, then an A series, or whatever Apple may choose to name this new series, might run native x86 software at the same speed as an equivalent x86. So the MacBook, for example, instead of using an Intel M series, could run an Apple SoC at the same level of processing power.

Over time, as Apple’s chips continue to increase their performance level, those chips could exceed these of x86 in the different categories the chips live in.

As far as higher performance chips go, Apple could always decide to increase the power envelope to better compete with these higher level chips. Apple does have the advantage, so far, of not having hardware 16 and 32 bit instructions on board. Whether that would prove an impediment to running older x86 software, or whether Apple could work that out with their more modern chips, I don’t know.

But I think this is an interesting take on the situation, and if possible, assuming Apple is looking at it, could solve these compatibility problems people are concerned about.