Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

Eug · Nov 10, 2020

M1
5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LP-DDR4
16 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 12 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache
(Apple claims the 4 high-effiency cores alone perform like a dual-core Intel MacBook Air)

8-core iGPU (but there is a 7-core variant, likely with one inactive core)
128 execution units
Up to 24576 concurrent threads
2.6 Teraflops
82 Gigatexels/s
41 gigapixels/s

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Products:
$999 ($899 edu) 13" MacBook Air (fanless) - 18 hour video playback battery life
$699 Mac mini (with fan)
$1299 ($1199 edu) 13" MacBook Pro (with fan) - 20 hour video playback battery life

Memory options 8 GB and 16 GB. No 32 GB option (unless you go Intel).

It should be noted that the M1 chip in these three Macs is the same (aside from GPU core number). Basically, Apple is taking the same approach which these chips as they do the iPhones and iPads. Just one SKU (excluding the X variants), which is the same across all iDevices (aside from maybe slight clock speed differences occasionally).

EDIT:

M1 Pro 8-core CPU (6+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 16-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 24-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 32-core GPU

M1 Pro and M1 Max discussion here:

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M1 Ultra discussion here:

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M2 discussion here:

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Second Generation 5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LPDDR5, up to 24 GB and 100 GB/s
20 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 16 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache

10-core iGPU (but there is an 8-core variant)
3.6 Teraflops

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Hardware acceleration for 8K h.264, h.264, ProRes

M3 Family discussion here:

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M4 Family discussion here:

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mikegg · Apr 28, 2024

Where are the people who were so confident that Apple was on a 18 month+ cadence for Apple Silicon? @Eug and others

Not saying that M4 will come out in May of this year based on this report. But where there is smoke, there is some fire.

Glo. · Apr 28, 2024

It will be absolutely shocking if Apple will already release M4, and... that the first product that gets it is the iPad.

mikegg · Apr 28, 2024

Glo. said:
It will be absolutely shocking if Apple will already release M4, and... that the first product that gets it is the iPad.

It isn't that shocking in my opinion.

First of all, A18 Pro design has long been finished. Apple always makes iPhone chips starting in Spring.

Second, N3E is already in full production based on the above logic.

Third, N3B yields are likely so bad that Apple isn't waiting around to start moving chips to N3E asap.

Fourth, Apple is behind in AI and M4 is likely to feature a big NPU boost for future on-device GenAI features. M4 coming out early shows how desperate Apple is to catch up on the AI wave.

Eug · Apr 28, 2024

mikegg said:
Where are the people who were so confident that Apple was on a 18 month+ cadence for Apple Silicon? @Eug and others

Not saying that M4 will come out in May of this year based on this report. But where there is smoke, there is some fire.

If you look at my previous post on this, you'll see my belief was there is no strict 12 month cadence or 18 month cadence, but that it would vary between about 12 and 18 months.

An M4 release in May 2024 (iPad only or iPad + Macs?) would be interesting, as it is only 9 months, but then again, that would mean the M3 series is a cut down generation, with no M3 Ultra and several Macs not adopting that generation (Mac mini, Mac Studio, Mac Pro).

Hence my question about N3B: Is N3B so problematic that they decided to simply cut that generation short to move on to M4 on N3E?

mikegg · Apr 28, 2024

Eug said:
If you see my previous post on this, my belief was there is no strict 12 month cadence or 18 month cadence, but that it would vary between about 12 and 18 months.

An M4 release in May 2024 (iPad only or iPad + Macs?) would be interesting, as it is only 9 months, but then again, that would mean the M3 series is a cut down generation, with no M3 Ultra and several Macs not adopting that generation (Mac mini, Mac Studio, Mac Pro).

Hence my question about N3B: Is N3B so problematic that they decided to simply cut that generation short to move on to M4 on N3E?

No, your posts ridiculed the thought of a yearly Apple Silicon cadence. Overtime, maybe your stance has softened after more evidence.

Eug · Apr 28, 2024

mikegg said:
No, your posts ridiculed the thought of a yearly Apple Silicon cadence. Overtime, maybe your stance has softened after more evidence.

I said yearly is not necessary since they're Macs and not iPhones, and I still don't believe it will be consistently yearly (although yes it could be after a year occasionally). Personally I don't see why some people are so adamant it has to be yearly. There is no such requirement because the Mac market doesn't demand it. Even in the days of Intel's yearly releases, Apple didn't adopt those chips yearly.

However, I will admit I wouldn't have expected 9 months. Then again, there were theories (that most did not believe) that M3 could move from N3B to N3E to prolong that generation, but I guess moving to M4 on N3E might make more sense.

mikegg · Apr 28, 2024

Eug said:
I said yearly is not necessary since they're Macs and not iPhones, and I still don't believe it will be consistently yearly (although yes it could be after a year occasionally). Personally I don't see why some people are so adamant it has to be yearly. There is no such requirement because the Mac market doesn't demand it. Even in the days of Intel's yearly releases, Apple didn't adopt those chips yearly.

However, I will admit I wouldn't have expected 9 months. Then again, there were theories (that most did not believe) that M3 could move from N3B to N3E to prolong that generation, but I guess moving to M4 on N3B might make more sense.

You can spin it however you want. Just admitting that you were very wrong is enough and we can move on.

Eug · Apr 28, 2024

mikegg said:
You can spin it however you want. Just admitting that you were very wrong is enough and we can move on.

You love jumping to conclusions based on a rumour don't you?

mikegg · Apr 28, 2024

Eug said:
You love jumping to conclusions based on a rumour don't you?

You never admit clearly that you made a wrong conclusion, right?

Even if M4 comes out in Fall 2024, that still disproves you.

Eug · Apr 28, 2024

mikegg said:
You never admit clearly that you made a wrong conclusion, right?

Even if M4 comes out in Fall 2024, that still disproves you.

You haven't been paying attention. As I've said previously, when Intel had yearly CPU releases, sometimes Apple would adopt those chips yearly, and sometimes they wouldn't, the point being Apple wasn't wedded to a yearly Mac release schedule, even when the chips were available to adopt as drop-in upgrades. It was clear Apple didn't feel the need to lock themselves into that cadence for Macs, even if they do for iPhones. However, iPhones sell at literally an order of magnitude higher than Macs do, so it makes sense.

Anyhow, at this point, we don't know if M4 will come out spring 2024 (which would be a bonus because I'm interested in buying an OLED iPad Pro this year), fall 2024, or early 2025. There have been rumours for all three dates now. Ironically, those rumours have all been stated by Mark Gurman, so he's all over the map.

Glo. · Apr 28, 2024

Eug said:
I said yearly is not necessary since they're Macs and not iPhones, and I still don't believe it will be consistently yearly (although yes it could be after a year occasionally). Personally I don't see why some people are so adamant it has to be yearly. There is no such requirement because the Mac market doesn't demand it. Even in the days of Intel's yearly releases, Apple didn't adopt those chips yearly.

However, I will admit I wouldn't have expected 9 months. Then again, there were theories (that most did not believe) that M3 could move from N3B to N3E to prolong that generation, but I guess moving to M4 on N3B might make more sense.

For Normal MX chips it can be yearly cadence. For MX Pro, Max, Ultra - it will be extremely difficult to maintain that pace of new revisions.

Eug · Apr 28, 2024

I wonder how much cheaper it will be to manufacture M4 on N3E than would be to manufacture M3 on N3B in 2024.

M1: 16 billion transistors, 119 mm2, N5
M1 Max: 57 billon transistors, 425 mm2, N5
M2: 20 billion transistors, 142 mm2, N5P
M2 Max: 67 billon transistors, ? 510 mm2, N5P
M3: 25 billion transistors, 146 mm2, N3B
M3 Max: 92 billon transistors, ? >600 mm2, N3B

M4: ?? billion transistors, ??? mm2, ? N3E
M4 Max? ??? billion transistors, ??? mm2, ? N3E

P.S. Just a reminder that N3E is supposedly a bit less dense than N3B.

TSMC Details 3nm Evolution: N3E On Schedule, N3P and N3X To Deliver 5% Performance Gains

www.anandtech.com

Doug S · Apr 28, 2024

Eug said:
I wonder how much cheaper it will be to manufacture M4 on N3E than would be to manufacture M3 on N3B in 2024.

M1: 16 billion transistors, 119 mm2, N5
M1 Max: 57 billon transistors, 425 mm2, N5
M2: 20 billion transistors, 142 mm2, N5P
M2 Max: 67 billon transistors, ? 510 mm2, N5P
M3: 25 billion transistors, 146 mm2, N3B
M3 Max: 92 billon transistors, ? >600 mm2, N3B

M4: ?? billion transistors, ??? mm2, ? N3E
M4 Max? ??? billion transistors, ??? mm2, ? N3E

P.S. Just a reminder that N3E is supposedly a bit less dense than N3B.

You can tell from that table alone that Apple is not going to be concerned about minor variations in price. They went from 119 to 142 mm^2 between M1 and M2, despite N5P being a bit denser. That clearly increased their cost, but M2 would still be less than $50 per chip (not including the fancy packaging with LPDDR) so it is well under 10% of the price of even the cheapest products it goes in, and under 5% of the price of the most expensive like iPad Pro.

Compare with the economics of PC OEMs, who are paying much higher prices for Intel & AMD chips. Granted they don't pay the development/design costs like Apple does, but Apple has much more flexibility on that front than anyone else selling PCs/tablets.

If they do M4 early (I'm skeptical but as I posted elsewhere it is theoretically possible) it won't be to save money. It'll be because they have reasons (presumably the larger NPU but who knows what else) to get M4 into iPad Pros now rather than a year from now.

mikegg · Apr 28, 2024

Eug said:
You haven't been paying attention. As I've said previously, when Intel had yearly CPU releases, sometimes Apple would adopt those chips yearly, and sometimes they wouldn't, the point being Apple wasn't wedded to a yearly Mac release schedule, even when the chips were available to adopt as drop-in upgrades

I have been paying attention. You were pretty adamant that Apple wouldn't do a yearly cadence and you gave the reason why.

Eug said:
This doesn’t sound right. I’d be very surprised if M series is yearly.

Eug said:
What's wrong with ~18 months? That was roughly the time frame for the iPad Pros, which used pre-M type chips.

The average between releases is over 500 days, and the very shortest is over 400 days.

2015-11 - A9X
2017-06 - A10X
2018-10 - A12X
2020-03 - A12Z
2021-04 - M1
2022-10 - M2

mikegg · Apr 28, 2024

Doug S said:
You can tell from that table alone that Apple is not going to be concerned about minor variations in price. They went from 119 to 142 mm^2 between M1 and M2, despite N5P being a bit denser. That clearly increased their cost, but M2 would still be less than $50 per chip (not including the fancy packaging with LPDDR) so it is well under 10% of the price of even the cheapest products it goes in, and under 5% of the price of the most expensive like iPad Pro.

Compare with the economics of PC OEMs, who are paying much higher prices for Intel & AMD chips. Granted they don't pay the development/design costs like Apple does, but Apple has much more flexibility on that front than anyone else selling PCs/tablets.

If they do M4 early (I'm skeptical but as I posted elsewhere it is theoretically possible) it won't be to save money. It'll be because they have reasons (presumably the larger NPU but who knows what else) to get M4 into iPad Pros now rather than a year from now.

That's right. Trendforce did an analysis in the past and came up with something like $200 - $300 for Intel chips "equivalent" to the M1. That means Apple saves around $150 - $200 per Macbook Air in BOM.

Coincidentally, this was the main reason why I suggested (back in the year 2021) that Apple will likely introduce a Macbook SE that costs around $750 - $799 in the future. Once again, @Eug disagreed and thought Apple would never sell a Macbook that cheap. Although the Macbook SE hasn't been released yet, it's only been rumored, the M1 Macbook Air has been selling for $650 - $750 for over a year now at Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, etc. The M1 Air is really the Macbook SE in spirit.

I still expect to see a real Macbook SE in the future though I'm raising the expected MSRP price to now $799 - $850 due to rapid inflation. What do you think @Eug ?

Eug said:
You're sounding more and more ridiculous.

1) $900 is not $700.
2) Apple computers go on sale EVERY FRICKIN' YEAR on Black Friday/Cyber Monday. This is not new.
3) The list price is still $1000. $1000 is 43% more than $700.

Come back when you actually have something real to argue with.

Whatever you're smokin', I want some!

Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart have been selling the M1 Air for $650 - $750 for over a year now. You keep saying my predictions are ridiculous but you keep getting proved wrong over and over again.

mikegg · Apr 28, 2024

Eug · Apr 28, 2024

mikegg said:
Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart have been selling the M1 Air for $650 - $750 for over a year now. You keep saying my predictions are ridiculous but you keep getting proved wrong over and over again.

Stop trying to change the goalposts. I'll quote my own post, one you in fact quoted yourself:

Eug said:
2) Apple computers go on sale EVERY FRICKIN' YEAR on Black Friday/Cyber Monday. This is not new.

3) The list price is still $1000. $1000 is 43% more than $700.

BTW, The M1 MacBook Air has been discontinued. The current "low priced" model is the M2 MacBook Air, and the list price is still $999.

There still remains no such thing as a MacBook SE.

Eug · Apr 28, 2024

mikegg said:
I have been paying attention. You were pretty adamant that Apple wouldn't do a yearly cadence and you gave the reason why.

Thanks for finding that quote of mine. To quote myself in that very post of mine you linked::

Eug said:
What's wrong with ~18 months? That was roughly the time frame for the iPad Pros, which used pre-M type chips.

The average between releases is over 500 days, and the very shortest is over 400 days.

400 days is just over 13 months
500 days is around 17 months

The point is like Macs, Apple wasn't locking itself into a yearly cadence with the iPad Pros. They are willing to extend past a year between releases, and sometimes much longer than a year. I would expect a somewhat similar release schedule going forward, both for the iPad Pro and for Macs. There is no need for them to stick to 12 months, even if sometimes it is close to 12 months.

mikegg · Apr 29, 2024

Eug said:
Stop trying to change the goalposts. I'll quote my own post, one you in fact quoted yourself:

BTW, The M1 MacBook Air has been discontinued. The current "low priced" model is the M2 MacBook Air, and the list price is still $999.

There still remains no such thing as a MacBook SE.

Not so great reading comprehension...

Anyways.

Eug said:
Thanks for finding that quote of mine. To quote myself in that very post of mine you linked::

400 days is just over 13 months
500 days is around 17 months

The point is like Macs, Apple wasn't locking itself into a yearly cadence with the iPad Pros. They are willing to extend past a year between releases, and sometimes much longer than a year. I would expect a somewhat similar release schedule going forward, both for the iPad Pro and for Macs. There is no need for them to stick to 12 months, even if sometimes it is close to 12 months.

Stop changing the goal post. Clearly you were vehemently rejecting the idea that Apple Silicon could come out once a year.

mikegg said:
Yes, no one is buying $500-$700 PC laptops to do professional work anyway. People who buy them are students and people who use it for casual work.

A $700 Macbook with a one-generation behind ARM chip is going to dominate this market. It will still be the best laptop in that range.

I can totally see Apple making this laptop as soon as next year. Or they just drop the price of M1 Air to $700 and keep M2 Air $999.

Eug said:
Not going to happen.

Look at you here again. Confidently saying "not going to happen". That's exactly what happened for almost 1.5 year.

Eug · Apr 29, 2024

It's so strange that you love quoting things that contradict yourself.

mikegg said:
I can totally see Apple making this laptop as soon as next year. Or they just drop the price of M1 Air to $700 and keep M2 Air $999.

Just to be clear for those who may have not seen the older posts where this was ALREADY stated:

Apple never dropped its M1 Air price to $700. However, also as mentioned before, Apple laptops have frequently gone on sale at third party retail stores, particularly as they age. This has been going on for many, many years. This is not new. The only thing at Apple that comes close is refurb pricing, institutional edu pricing, and Back-To-School edu promotions (in the form of gift cards or whatever). But those are not new either.

IOW, nothing has changed. However, you continue to quote Amazon sale pricing as Apple pricing. Really, it's quite bizarre.

mikegg · Apr 29, 2024

Eug said:
It's so strange that you love quoting things that contradict yourself.

Just to be clear for those who may have not seen the older posts where this was ALREADY stated:

Apple never dropped its M1 Air price to $700. However, also as mentioned before, Apple laptops have frequently gone on sale at third party retail stores, particularly as they age. This has been going on for many, many years. This is not new. The only thing at Apple that comes close is refurb pricing, institutional edu pricing, and Back-To-School edu promotions (in the form of gift cards or whatever). But those are not new either.

IOW, nothing has changed. However, you continue to quote Amazon sale pricing as Apple pricing. Really, it's quite bizarre.

Why do you think Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Costco sold the Macbook Air M1 for $650 - $750 for 1.5 years?

They receive pricing from Apple.

Yes, it's not the price on Apple.com or Apple Store. It doesn't take a genius to know that.

Just admit it. In the beginning, you were adamament that sub $1,000 Macbooks would never come to fruition and that Apple does not have a 1 year cadence, but rather an 18 month+ cadence.

Both clearly wrong. Overtime, your tone changed and became more accepting of both of my ideas from 2020. The only person moving the goal post here seems to be you.

Mopetar · Apr 29, 2024

mikegg said:
Stop changing the goal post. Clearly you were vehemently rejecting the idea that Apple Silicon could come out once a year.

Either it's your own reading comprehension that needs work or you don't know what the word vehemently means. His posts read like polite disagreement with his own stated alternative belief rather than any kind of impassioned stand on a point that he refuses to budge from.

Meanwhile, All of your recent posts on this page make you come across as an unhinged weirdo trying to jump down someone's throat because they didn't agree with you on the Internet. You need to go outside and smoke some grass because I'm not sure if just touching it would be enough to take the edge off.

mikegg · Apr 29, 2024

Mopetar said:
Either it's your own reading comprehension that needs work or you don't know what the word vehemently means. His posts read like polite disagreement with his own stated alternative belief rather than any kind of impassioned stand on a point that he refuses to budge from.

Nah, @Eug definitely move the goal post. His posts started out as impassioned stands for which he refuses to budge from. He refuses to budge even after 4 years of strong evidence though his tone has definitely soften and more accepting of the original ideas.

Mopetar said:
Meanwhile, All of your recent posts on this page make you come across as an unhinged weirdo trying to jump down someone's throat because they didn't agree with you on the Internet. You need to go outside and smoke some grass because I'm not sure if just touching it would be enough to take the edge off.

Sure, if I'm wrong, I'll admit it. If @Eug is wrong, I expect him to admit it as well instead of moving the goal post. If he moves the goal post, then I'm willing to continue to respond.

mikegg · Apr 29, 2024

Mopetar said:
His posts read like polite disagreement

I don't understand why you believe this. Just see some of his impolite replies to me in the past. Do these sound like "polite disagreement"?

If you think that, then I definitely want "whatever you're smokin" as @Eug said.

Eug said:
You're sounding more and more ridiculous.

Eug said:
Come back when you actually have something real to argue with.

Eug said:
Whatever you're smokin', I want some!

Eug said:
Stop trying to change the goalposts.

poke01 · Apr 29, 2024

Can we get back on topic or at least stop this until May 7? There is only a week to see who is wrong and who isn't.

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