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A comment on The Apple A15 SoC Performance Review: Faster and More Efficient. Parent comment

Re:The Apple A15 SoC Performance Review: Faster and More Eff... by monocasa on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @12:20AM (#28755464)
That's not what I've heard. The rumor is that AArch64 is as much Apple's as it is ARM's. That's why they're able to flaunt the normal restrictions of the architectural license: creating custom instructions, and not implementing parts of the ISA.
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Re:The Apple A15 SoC Performance Review: Faster and More Eff... by deaddodo on Friday October 08, 2021 @12:28AM (#28795749)
There is no rumor. AArch64 was designed by and is owned by ARM, as is all of the ARM IP.

Apple is able to do what they want because they have an architectural license; not a core license. It's the same reason Nvidia, Cavium, etc are able to design their own cores irrespective of the Cortex series. That's what an architectural license is for. While MediaTek, HiSilicon, etc are limited to using the Cortex SIP.

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