Apple Inc. plans to introduce “several” new Mac models with Arm Holdings PLC silicon under the hood in 2021, MacRumors reported Thursday evening.

The information comes by way of a research note from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a long track record of accurately predicting future Apple products.

Since at least early 2019, reports have emerged that Apple is looking to replace the Intel Corp. central processing units powering its current Mac models with Arm silicon. However, details have been quite scarce until now. If accurate, Kuo’s latest research note provides a number of new insights into Apple’s computer roadmap.

Beyond the expected 2021 release date, the planned Arm-powered Macs are believed to be a mix of desktops and laptops. Cambridge, U.K.-based Arm doesn’t make chips but rather sells semiconductor designs that other companies such as Apple can use to build their own custom processors. It’s estimated that the custom processors Apple will ship with the 2021 Mac lineup could reduce its central processing unit costs by 40% to 60% compared with using Intel products.

Kuo also believes that switching to Arm would “allow Apple to refresh its Mac models without relying on Intel’s processor roadmap,” according to MacRumors. Designing the Mac’s CPU in-house may enable the iPhone maker to provide bigger speed improvements between product generations. Intel’s latest Ice lake CPUs provides 18% more instructions per clock cycle than earlier chips, whereas the Arm-based processor Apple has designed for the iPhone 11 is 20% faster than its predecessor and uses 30% less power.

The change of chip architectures is not the only enhancement said to be coming to the Mac line. In 2022, the year after the Arm-powered models are expected to debut, Apple will reportedly add USB4 support to the product family. USB4 is an upcoming upgrade to the ubiquitous connectivity standard that will double transfer speeds to a maximum of 40 gigabits per second, allowing users to attach more devices and sharper displays to their computers.

These latest rumors come less than 10 days after Apple unveiled  a new MacBook Air. The laptop is twice as fast as its identically named predecessor and debuted alongside a refreshed iPad Pro with a lidar-assisted rear camera system.

Apple generated $7.2 billion from Mac shipments in the first quarter of 2020. The company sold $6 billion worth of iPads during the same period while iPhone sales reached $56 billion and its “Wearables, Home and Accessories” business, which includes the Apple Watch, brought in an additional $10 billion.

Photo: Apple