Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) designs by Apple Inc., primarily using the ARM architecture, along with a range of more specialized chips for other devices and wireless connectivity functions. They are used across nearly all Apple devices, including Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch, AirPods, AirTag, HomePod, and Apple Vision Pro.
The first Apple-designed SoC was the Apple A4, introduced in 2010 with the first-generation iPad and subsequently used in the iPhone 4, fourth-generation iPod Touch, and second-generation Apple TV.
At WWDC 2020, Apple announced the transition of the Mac to its own chips, adopting the name Apple silicon for its chip lineup. The first Macs with Apple silicon, built around the Apple M1, were unveiled on November 10, 2020. The Mac lineup completed its transition to Apple silicon in June 2023.
As a fabless manufacturer, Apple designs its chips in-house but outsources production to contract foundries including TSMC and Samsung. Apple controls the integration of its silicon across both its hardware and software products.
Apple also employs chip binning as a cost-reduction strategy. In the binning process, chips with a manufacturing defect, typically a GPU core, have the affected part disabled, converting an otherwise unusable chip into a lower-specification but functional one. This improves manufacturing yield and allows Apple to offer products at different price points without designing separate chips for each tier. Examples include entry-level MacBook Air models, which have shipped with M-series chips with one or two GPU cores disabled, and the iPhone 17e, which uses a binned A19 with fewer GPU cores than the standard iPhone 17.
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