AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su sat down with journalists in a Q&A session following a keynote address at CES 2021 on Tuesday, and addressed a variety of questions, including a request to comment on Apple’s first foray into the desktop processor room.
Su spoke to the press via conference call and addressed a series of questions about AMD’s upcoming plans, the x86 platform, and new developments in a highly competitive semiconductor market.
Dr. Ian Cutress from AnandTech aimed at the emergence of ARM processor designs. According to Cutress, ARM models are expected to vastly improve computing performance in the coming years and be able to penetrate the terrain long held by x86 makers such as AMD and Intel. ARM silicon is mostly used in specialized implementations such as servers, but the chip designs are now starting to show up in consumer products.
For example, Apple introduced the M1 chip in its 13-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini models in late 2020. The tech giant plans to run its full line of Mac computers on custom ARM chips within two years. That means an immediate loss of revenue for current CPU partner Intel, but also creates headwinds for the wider x86 market.
Su was asked how the M1 will affect AMD’s relationship with Apple.
“The M1 is more about how much processing and innovation there is on the market. This is an opportunity to innovate more, in both hardware and software, and it goes beyond the ISA,” said Su. “From our point of view, there is still innovation in the PC field – we have many choices and people can use the same processors in many different environments. We expect more specialization as we move forward in the coming years, and it allows for more differentiation. But Apple will continue to work with us as their graphics partner, and we will work with them. ”
Apple relies on AMD’s Radeon graphics cards to power high-end devices such as MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac Pro, but that may change with a shift to 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.
While Apple is happy with the integrated graphics card for the first wave of M1 Macs, the company may be working on a dedicated GPU to better serve powerful machines.
Apple’s move to ARM appears to be putting pressure on incumbents. On Monday, Intel detailed its upcoming Alder Lake chip series, seemingly taking a page out of the Apple Silicon strategy book by expanding use cases from mobile to desktop.