Apple has to put up with it, if you lose Jeff Wilcox, the previous head of the Mac system architecture. Even worse, as it now turns out, the chief engineer goes straight to Intel.
A A huge coup for Intel. Jeff Wilcox is now one of the leading Apple employees and developers behind the famous M-Chip series. At Apple’s former chip partner and now the toughest competitor in the race for the best processor, Wilcox will continue its work as “Design Engineering Group CTO” (source: Tom’s Hardware).
Apple loses important man to Intel
In practice, according to information provided by Wilcox, this means that from now on he will be responsible for the architecture of all SoCs for all Intel customer segments. For the chip manufacturer, it is certainly a real coup to be able to win such an important Apple employee. And what exactly was Wilcox’s job at Apple? It says:
“Head of the Mac systems architecture team responsible for overall system architecture, signal integrity, and power integrity for Mac systems. He led the conversion of all Macs to Apple Silicon, starting with the M1 chip, and previously developed the SoC and system architecture for the T2 coprocessor. “
Undoubtedly, Intel can do more than good at someone like that, after all, they want to make up lost ground. In some cases, this is already possible, as the latest announcement of the 12th generation of mobile core processors suggests. But especially When it comes to efficiency, Intel still has to go a long way.
The currently fastest Apple processor works in the current MacBook Pro:
Apple’s road map is in place
It is questionable, however, whether the access of a single employee alone is so decisive in the end. Apple will also try to close the gap as well as possible. Ultimately, it is the team itself that is responsible for success.
Interesting: Wilcox was previously at Intel before he worked at Apple for the last 8 years. So he’s basically switching back. Apple’s chip development is of course not in danger. This year we will soon be the M2 with the second generation of their own Mac chips get presented. The race between Intel and Apple has only just begun.