Apple bolsters its chip team by hiring architect who worked at ARM, Intel, AMD

Enlarge / Apple’s iPad Pro had a new, Apple-designed chip called the A12X that rivaled many high-end laptop CPUs in performance. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Apple has hired an experienced CPU designer to join its team. Mike Filippo joined Apple last month with the title Architect, according to his LinkedIn profile. The move ends a decade spent at ARM, where he was lead architect on several chip products. Filippo also spent time working on CPUs at Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.

The hire is a big get for Apple. ARM is responsible for technology that powers the A series chips Apple has been using in its mobile devices. For instance, the A12X in the iPad Pro springboards off the big.LITTLE architecture from ARM.

“Mike was a long-time valuable member of the ARM community,” a representative from ARM told Bloomberg. “We appreciate all of his efforts and wish him well in his next endeavor.” Apple has not commented on the hire.