Apple designed the Arm-based M1 chip used in the 2020 MacBook Air.
The M1 was Apple’s first chip for Mac computers built with Apple silicon, replacing Intel processors in several Mac models. Apple introduced it in November 2020 in the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini.
The chip combines CPU cores, GPU cores, memory controllers, and other functions in one system-on-a-chip package. This integrated design helped Apple deliver strong performance while improving energy efficiency, especially in laptops.
A common mix-up is confusing Apple’s M1 with Arm, the company whose instruction-set architecture helped underpin the chip. Arm supplied the underlying architecture, but Apple designed the M1 itself. Apple’s market value has been supported by its hardware, software, and services ecosystem.