Given the massive success of Apple Silicon and the fact that we’re just more than a month removed from the release of Apple’s most powerful chip yet, the M5 Max, it’s easy to forget that for the majority of the company’s history, Apple was beholden to others for its supply of systems on a chip (SOCs), CPUs and GPUs.
But Apple has always understood that the best devices require full integration between hardware and software. That is why the company has fought so hard to fully own as much of its core supply chain as possible. Today, Apple not only designs the chips that house both the CPU and GPU of its devices, but also designs its own wireless audio chips, and its own modems. Better yet, all of those chips are among the finest and most performant in the industry.
And while the company’s first custom chip, the A4, was released back in 2010, the company’s desire to power its devices with custom silicon stretches much farther back. In the video below, we explore the history of Apple’s very first attempt at building its own custom silicon In the mid-1980s: Project Aquarius.
