After a two-year transition from Intel to its own silicon, Apple has just introduced all of the M1 family of chips for its mainstream Macs. At the same time, the company is now preparing the next wave of computers with the second generation of its processors.
In a new Wall Street Journal feature, Apple writes about Johnny Srouji of Apple, a former Intel engineer and chief executive of IBM, who helped Apple’s semiconductor division move away from Intel in favor of its own silicon.
After several years of stagnation in Mac sales, when the company even had to publicly apologize for the poor reception of its first generation Mac Pro, Apple is in a very different position thanks to the M1 chips on the Mac.
But it didn’t happen right away when the company revolutionized its Macs again. It’s 14 years of behind-the-scenes work by Mr. Srouji who, according to the WSJ, has grown the Chip team from 45 people to several thousand around the world, including his native Israel.
“What I’ve learned in life is that you think through everything you can control, and then you have to be flexible, adaptive and strong enough to navigate when things don’t go according to plan.” – Mr. Srouji, Senior Vice President Apple on hardware technology, said in a rare interview. “Covid was one example.”
In the story, the publication interviews Mike Demier, an independent analyst who has been following the semiconductor industry for almost 50 years:
“It seemed a little crazy at first that they could actually kick Intel out, but overall it made them a more dominant platform.”
To make its own silicon, Apple also had to worry about switching to Intel as the company struggled to move away from the PowerPC in 2006.
According to a person involved in the effort, this transition entailed numerous last-minute changes to the laptop’s main board. “Many people were afraid that we would have the same problem,” the person said. Mr. Srouji acknowledged that the change in strategy sparked a fierce debate within the company (…) any mistake would be frustrating and costly.
“First of all, if we do this, will we be able to produce better products?” Mr. Srouji spoke about the debate. “This is question number one. It’s not about the chip. Apple is not a chip company.”
By the time the pandemic kicked in, the Wall Street Journal reports that “one of the biggest worries arose with the advent of Covid-19, which threatened to derail years of preparations for the M1 chips to debut in the fall of 2020.” Since there was no such possibility, Mr. Srouji worked on creating a new on-the-fly testing process.
The team has installed cameras in the labs so engineers can remotely check the chips, according to people familiar with the work. It was the kind of change that was once hard to imagine from Apple, where privacy and control are paramount.
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Part of the rollout was so smooth because Mr. Srouja’s team is scattered around the world and is already accustomed to doing business via video calls and working across time zones as they coordinated in remote locations such as San Diego and Munich, Germany. .
Apple then introduced its first batch of M1 Macs with the M1 MacBook Air, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro, all of which received high praise. The company has since announced its first M1-chip desktop, the 24-inch iMac, redesigned the MacBook Pro with more powerful M1 Pro and M1 Max variants, and now it’s just launched its powerful Mac Studio with the M1 Ultra chip. , which may even outperform the 2019 Mac Pro.
You can read the full Wall Street Journal article here.
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