The Future: Apple Moving to ARM-based Macs in 2021

According to a Bloomberg article last week, Apple is expected to announce ARM-based Macs at this month’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on 22 June 2020.

The code name for the semi-secretive project is Kalamata.

ARM Processor Macs

This would mark the third time in Apple’s 36-year history the company has switched processor architectures, and the first time the company has developed its own processor for the Mac. In the early 90s, Apple moved from Motorola 68k series CPUs to the AIM (Apple/IBM/Motorola) Alliance’s PowerPC processors. During the ’90s, Apple enjoyed many years of superior CPU performance over Intel x86 chips. Then in 2005, Steve Jobs announced Apple was moving to Intel’s x86 CPUs.

Key Takeaway: Apple is set to announce its move to ARM-based Macs in 2021 at this month’s Apple WWDC. The move is coming due to Intel’s woeful performance improvements, but Apple’s control of its own Mac CPU and GPU could do wonders for the platform, but there will be a software transition and a cost that will be felt in the pro markets like CAD/BIM/3D.

In both cases, Apple moved to different chip architectures due to current and projected performance or performance per watt concerns. The RISC (reduce instruction set computing) advantages of PowerPC gave Apple an inherent advantage for the AIM-era PowerPCs and Apple famously touted those advantages in memorable TV commercials.

Similarly, to the move to Intel, Apple’s key concern was performance per watt—as Apple’s mobile line of computers are hugely popular in business and education—and mobility means hours of use per battery charge. Apple designs and engineers its own battery technology and its A-series ARM-based chips for its iOS-based devices (eg: iPhone and iPad).

Multi-Year Roll-Out

Bloomberg’s sources claim Apple will roll out its own ARM-based Macs starting in 2021. While it will certainly start with some segment of its Macbook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro line, or perhaps all three, eventually Apple plans to transition to its own chips for even the most powerful desktop Macs. This means, eventually, even its ultra-powerful Mac Pro workstation.

MORE: Apple Leaving Intel on Macs by 2020—Impact on New Mac Pro

Apple moving to ARM with its professional-oriented Macs will have an outsized impact on various industries currently enjoying robust native applications for macOS. We have warned of this before in response to previous rumors of ARM-based Macs. We will summarize some of those concerns in the last section of this article. In any case, Apple will undoubtedly be pressured to maintain Intel-based Mac options for a few years, allowing both software developers and users to transition professional software solutions—especially those solutions built using numerous technical engines (eg: geometry kernels, rendering engines, etc)—for perhaps greater than 3 years.

next page: The benefits of ARM-Macs

ARM-based Mac Benefits

Bloomberg reports that Apple’s chip-development group, led by Johny Srouji, decided to bail on Intel due to performance reasons. Simply put, Intel CPUs were not making big enough performance gains and Apple engineers worried they would jeopardize future Macs.

Intel is Lagging

Apparently, inside Apple, tests with new Macs running ARM-based chips are greatly out-performing Intel versions of the same machines, specifically with graphics performance and apps using AI (artificial intelligence). These are two areas of big concern for the CAD/BIM/3D industries that Architosh readers generally belong to. AI, in particular, is increasingly penetrating BIM applications as well as AAD (algorithms-aided design) applications in both AEC and manufacturing.

Three Mac Chips

Apple is supposedly working on at least three of its own Mac processors (or systems on a chip), the first based on the A14 processor coming in the next iPhone. Beyond the CPU, there will be graphics processing units and a Neural Engine for handling machine learning. Japan Times says that the sources claim the future Mac chips will be much faster than the processors in the iPhone and iPad.

5-nanometer

A 5-nm part is going to be substantially more power-efficient and smaller than the 14 or 10-nm Intel chips slated for 2020 – 2021. The 2020 update to the Macbook Pro ships with either the 8th or 10th generation Intel Core i5 processors on a 14-nm process. Imagine a 2021 MacBook Pro computer packed with a 5-nm processor? This is three mode steps down from 14-nm. To put some of this in perspective, a Macworld article reports that TSMC says a 5-nm chip runs 15 percent faster at the same power as a 7-nm chip or 30 percent lower power at the same performance. That power savings can result in much longer battery life including some performance gains.

The Apple A13 chip has about 8.5 billion transistors. But the 5-nm TSMC built chip for Apple will be built using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography throughout the process, delivering up to 80 percent more logic per density. This can result in a 5-nm process, 100 mm² chip containing nearly 15 billion transistors. That more transistors than just about every desktop chip out there.

12-Cores Mac Chips

The Verge notes that Apple’s first ARM-based Mac chip will feature 12 CPU cores, eight of which will be high-performance “Firestorm” cores and four energy-efficient “Icestorm” cores. Regardless, it is estimated that the first Macs to be ARM-based will be lower-end models like the MacBook and MacBook Air or even perhaps a model of the Mac mini. This will give Apple more time to take on high-end Intel chips and more time for professional software—which is much more complex to build—to adjust for the day when iMacs, the iMac Pro, and Mac Pro could be ARM-powered.

next up: Software Impacts

Software Impacts

Importantly, future ARM-based Macs will not run iOS as its operating system but rather the regular macOS built for ARM. Apple has likely had macOS written for ARM-chips for several years, just as Steve Jobs said Mac OS X was written and compiled for Intel x86 since the first versions of Mac OS X.

Project Kalamata is reported to have been in the works for years, perhaps going back to 2012.

For professional software in the CAD/BIM/3D industries, in order for those packages to be built for future Macs running on Apple’s own ARM-based A-series chips, certain basic foundational software components would need to be changed and rewritten. Here’s a basic run-down:

Graphics APIs

Today’s CAD software generally produces its 3D visualizations to the computer screen using the open industry standard OpenGL API (application programming interface). Architosh has written extensively about OpenGL, WebGL, OpenGL ES (mobile OSs), and new low-level graphics APIs like Vulkan, Apple’s Metal, and Microsoft’s DirectX.

Some companies have written their own OpenGL rendering engines—like Vectorworks’s VGM—while other companies build software using software libraries from sources like Tech Soft 3D’s HOOPS Visualize. In each case, the code work behind graphics engines is intensive and forces developers in this kind of situation to spend development resources on “plumbing” and OS work rather than on building features for users.

Geometry Kernels 

Another major factor behind CAD/BIM/3D applications is geometry engines, the software that enables 3D modeling functions to exist in an application. A few giants in this space dominate the market and hundreds of solutions are built on geometry kernels like Dassault Systemes’ subsidiary Spatial and its ACIS Modeling kernel. Another pivotal kernel is Parasolid by Siemens. And there are others, including software developers who have built their own geometry modeling engines like Autodesk and Graphisoft.

Rendering Engines

A 3D CAD developer needs a geometry engine (kernel) to allow 3D modeling functionalities, a way to push these visualizations to computer screens and hence “graphics APIs,” and finally rendering engines to provide advanced photo-realistic visuals. While rendering engines exist, many of the best renderers are proprietary engines, either biased or unbiased variety.

Thankfully, Unity and Epic with its Unreal Engine have entered the professional markets, and because they already serve the vast gamers’ universe, those pro solutions that can tap into their visualization engines maybe some of the first solutions in the future world of ARM-based Macs.

Other Software Libraries

Other software components that make the CAD/BIM/3D world go around on all platforms involve physics engines, solvers, digital terrain modelers, GIS systems, middleware for talking to CNC machines, including 3D printers, additive manufacturing machinery, robot and robotic arm systems, 3D laser scanners, and much much more.

Recently Architosh published a large list of plugins for the AAD (algorithms-aided design) tool Grasshopper. The list was particularly focused on macOS compatible plugins for McNeel’s Grasshopper. Plugins and extensions to larger applications enrich those larger applications. While AutoCAD returned to the Mac nearly a decade ago, the amount of plugins or add-ons for it on the Mac side is minuscule to those available on the Windows side. One of the most popular tools for landscape architects, LandF/X, is an AutoCAD-based OEM package that is not available for the Mac version even though it is very possible and reasonable that it could be.

In Closing

The big point is this: it takes years for essential software solutions and libraries used in larger solutions to fully develop. The big work of shifting codebases from macOS on Intel to macOS on ARM architecture chips is not trivial and it will have impacts on the selection of professional CAD/BIM/3D solutions available for Mac users for years to come. Hopefully, the CAD/BIM/3D industries will not loose to much native software for the Mac, but there will be casualties.

Tim Cook and folks on stage in Steve Jobs Theater can spin the virtues of ARM all day long—and there will be many, especially performance—but these kinds of OS chip architecture changes take a toll on available software. The reason why it didn’t take a toll as badly last time is because Apple moved to Intel where most of the world’s software already existed. Now they are moving away from that world. That’s a pity because the Mac has slowly been building up towards parity with Windows.

On the flipside, Macs running ARM-based processors can more easily run native iOS apps alongside macOS apps. This benefit, plus the virtues that can come from more innovative and faster computers, should hopefully expand Apple’s computer market share beyond 10 percent. If they can capture 20 percent or more, far more developers will have greater incentive to commit to writing native macOS apps for ARM-based Macs, and the pro markets on Mac can recover the apps they lost in the process.

Postscript Mac Chips in America?

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) will be producing the new Mac chips. It is reported that the new chips will be manufactured on a 5-nanometer process, same as the upcoming iPhone and iPad. Architosh also noted last week that TSMC is building a new $12 billion chip plant in the United States, but it will not open until 2024. That plant is expected to build 5-nm chips. While Apple may move to 3-nm chips for its smallest devices as soon as possible, professional desktop Macs with ample available space compared to mobile devices could afford to feature bigger 5-nm chips for some time, essentially making the chips larger and more power-hungry in the name of performance. This could mean the TSMC plant in America could be, eventually, the manufacturing location for some or all of Apple’s future Mac chips.

For its iPhone and iPad devices, which sell in far greater volume, the new American plant will not only not offer the cutting edge 3-nanometer process technology, it may also not be capable of the volume requirements for iPhone and iPad. But Macs sell at much smaller numbers, so conceivably it could serve Mac chip needs from 2024 on.

[Editor’s note: this article was edited for minor changes on 22 Jun 2020.]