Andrew@cinebox@masto.hackers.town
So later-model Intel Macs have a "T2" security chip that handles encryption and serves as the system's SSD controller
This T2 contains the entire CPU cluster of the A10 chip, the SoC used in the iPhone 7 [1]
Which means that for the 2018/2019 MacBook Air models, the SSD controller is quite a bit faster, at least in theory, than the entire main CPU the OS is running on [2]
[1]: https://semiwiki.com/semiconductor-manufacturers/tsmc/301118-apples-orphan-silicon/
[2]: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/compare/12861845?baseline=12862708