The macOS SDK exposes a processor affinity API that you can program against. With ARM you can also selectively turn on and off cores. For example, when traveling with the work Linux laptop I turn the big cores off to drastically improve battery life. And this can be done at runtime not just at boot.
To offline a core:
echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuN/online
To online a core:
echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuN/online
Where cpuN is 0-4.
Keep in mind there's always one core you cannot disable to process interrupts.
Interacting with Cores As A Developer
The macOS SDK exposes a processor affinity API that you can program against. With ARM you can also selectively turn on and off cores. For example, when traveling with the work Linux laptop I turn the big cores off to drastically improve battery life. And this can be done at runtime not just at boot.
To offline a core:
To online a core:
Where cpuN is 0-4.
Keep in mind there's always one core you cannot disable to process interrupts.