ludi wrote:Waco wrote:It's a doorway to running on full ARM chips. There's no other end-road to this. They get the basics done for low-power active sleep, then start cranking on making the entire stack run fully on ARM.
I wouldn't make that assumption just yet. Low power design features are often at direct odds with high performance, which is part of the reason why both Apple and Google implemented a coprocessor scheme in their recent phone designs. Apple uses a Motion Coprocessor (iPhone 6 and up) to gather and interpret sensor data before deciding whether to bother the main CPU about it; Google's Sensor Hub (Nexus 5X/6P & Pixel) does that and also manages the camera and outbound radios.
Edit: For Apple, it's actually the iPhone 5S and up, along with various tablets and most iPads starting with the Air generation. Also some Microsoft, Motorola, Samsung products, etc. have their own hub or integrate another vendor's solution.
Sure, but I don't see any reason they couldn't do something similar in the non-Pro versions of the Mac. There are some high-performance ARM designs, and they could easily go with a BIG.little design for the new Mac once they figure these humps out.