Apple’s “revolutionary M1” chip, the first to be solely developed and built by the company in-house, could have been discovered by an Israeli research team, two sources from the industry told The Times of Israel.
The firm’s senior vice-president of hardware technologies, Haifa-born Johny Srouji, who is in charge of the new chip’s development, has called the invention a “breakthrough” for Apple. It is the first piece of technology built with “five-nanometer” processing equipment and combining within itself the functions which previously had been undertaken by several separate chips.
Srouji was also the one who set up Apple’s second largest R&D centre in the world in Israel’s Herzliya after a buyout of the Anobit start-up in 2012, and later in Haifa. Sources believe that it is employees in these research facilities who became majorly involved in developing M1, which Apple now calls “by far the most powerful chip” the firm “has ever made”.
The crucial piece of tech not only doubles the battery life with 15 times acceleration of machine learning, but is also said to be delivering “3.5 times faster processing”.
“The introduction of three new Macs featuring Apple’s breakthrough M1 chip represents a bold change that was years in the making, and marks a truly historic day for the Mac and for Apple”, Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook said in a statement.
The company, however, refused to comment on whether the Israeli team was actually a part of a breakthrough effort.
The chip became a part of a new line of Mac computers unveiled by Apple on Tuesday. Previously, the company has relied heavily on chips produced by semiconductor giant Intel Corp, but now it has started independently developing processors solely designed by Apple. Among computers that have been endowed with the new chip are the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini.