iPhone maker Apple is rumored to be designing a new ARM chip for its Mac range of Laptops. Apple already design their own ARM chips for iPhones but the current Mac laptops all have Intel chips as their main CPU, although the latest Macbook does have an ARM processor that runs the touch bar feature.
The new ARM based part, codenamed the T130 is going to work along side the Intel chip and handle the low power mode on the laptop which will involve tasks such as receiving emails, or installing OS updates while the screen is switched off. ARM chips have been traditionally better at low power computing than their Intel counterparts and on a laptop keeping power consumption low helps improve battery life.
Whether this news means that there is a possibility of one day Macs having only a ARM chip remains to be seen, but Apple has stated its desire before to merge iOS and MacOS software and this could result in just one common CPU architecture.
At the moment Intel still have the computing power advantage over ARM chips but with several ARM licensees all working on getting more performance from ARM designs the gap is closing and it could soon be a viable option to move away from Intel all together.
Apple also have a lot of experience in moving from one CPU architecture to another having moved from Motorola 68K chips in the 1980, to the PowerPC chips in the 1990s to the last more to Intel chips in 2005 so perhaps it seems not too much of a chore to move again.
You can read the full story from Bloomberg