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by IgorPartola 1697 days ago
Was there nobody else who made power efficient chips?
3 comments

Not in the x86 arena. Every time Apple gets involved with a CPU developers (Motorola, IBM, Intel) their needs splits from the developers desires. This time they decided to go on their own (well after years of doing this for the iPhone). Note: They have been involved in the ARM CPU market since the days of the Newton.
Many other manufacturers had made power-efficient ARM chips, however, the mainstream computer makers (just a few years ago including Apple) did choose x86 compatibility over power efficiency.
None of the other CPU manufacturers have access to the same silicon Apple does, so it's hard to say.
That would make sense in the context of Intel but anyone with money has access to TSMC 5nm (in 2021-2022). Do I misunderstand?
Just because you have money doesn't mean you have a market. Just to run a plate to create test cpus cost in the millions. All others were happy with the incremental upgrades that they were getting from ARM. Apple needed more and started creating CPUs for the iPhones a few years back
Looks like I did misunderstand, I thought they actually meant the silicon technology itself which is now available to the others and they all have designs coming using it.