Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

[Eug]

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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[soresu]

that is the bleeding edge making it to the real world, which is what matters.

What matters is what they can sell - Apple have proven this more than enough times by this point.

Also the 4.7 µm pixel display from 2012 was not a lab demonstration - it was a product manufactured by a French company called microOLED, intended for digital camera electronic viewfinders and other high density display market segments (which cover more than just VR/AR HMDs clearly).

Last point if you really want to get technical about what truly matters?

It's product volume, and lots of it - especially to Apple shareholders.

A $3,500 product in a sadly still nascent market is unlikely to evoke great sales volume in this economy - even previous to post COVID supply chain problems, the current geopolitical headaches rising fuel prices and associated inflation impacting the global economy that would be a lot of money, but these days they are clearly imbibing something category A level to be making that argument with a straight face.

They are still Apple, so I would not bet against them - but I wouldn't bet anything on their success either for this segment at this particular point in time.

The fact that even the Zuckerbot seemingly understands this is actually somewhat encouraging to me for Meta's future 😆

 

[A///]

A $3,500 product in a sadly still nascent market is unlikely to evoke great sales volume in this economy - even previous to post COVID supply chain problems, the current geopolitical headaches rising fuel prices and associated inflation impacting the global economy that would be a lot of money, but these days they are clearly imbibing something category A level to be making that argument with a straight face.

don't fret soresu. there's always people who'll buy a product whether they have the money laying around for it or not. they know an apple product will be miles ahead of the competition in quality. may not have the hottest components, but it'll be good. apple's launched new wild products through out its modern history. even I scoffed at such products like the thinner imac when it became a thing, laughed at the iphone and the ipad. in fact I know someone who bought them day one waiting in line to be one of the firsts to own he hardware. I see the fellar every time I pass by a mirror. never smiles but he's happy inside with his apple gear. the bitter wiseass never says hello either. the nerve of some people!

 

[Eug]

Judging by most of the reviewers, Apple Vision Pro is the best consumer VR/AR headset out there. However, judging by most of the same reviewers, it's still an awkward experience.

Tim Cook could sell his feces with an apple stamp on it and there'd be fools lining up to buy it. I'd buy it if I had a reason to.

TMI

 

[A///]

Judging by most of the reviewers, Apple Vision Pro is the best consumer VR/AR headset out there. However, judging by most of the same reviewers, it's still an awkward experience.



TMI

TMI would be a personal anecdote. NSFW would be more accurate. Otherwise i agree with your earlier statement in the post. The closest to this would be the hololens and I don't see microsoft selling those to the general public or they do and I've never caught wind of it.

apple isn't first here, but them doing this is groundbreaking because now other companies will want in on this action that apple will generate.

I have some ideas in mind for ar but they are out of my scope of understanding. on a more pg front i would have loved if more is done for vr and ar in the non vision sensory dept.

 

[Doug S]

Interesting - I wonder if we are well into nm pitch range by now.

That being said it seems like they would do better to work on the space between the pixels rather than just making them smaller though - I can't understand why it seems a digital micromirror display based HMD running at 720p shows less screen door than a state of the art emissive display running at over 2K x 2K.

I don't think improvements in density matter to Apple - they are already having to use lenses to magnify the image for your eyes so a smaller higher density chip just means they'd have to increase that magnification. It sounds like they are already at the resolution they need, if the early reports that looking at the real world in the Vision Pro is nearly indistinguishable from looking at it through transparent glass. So it doesn't sound like space between pixels or screen door effect is an issue there at all. At this point, more resolution would only unnecessarily increase the amount of work the GPU has to do so I doubt Apple is looking for more pixels or to reduce space between pixels.

I'm sure they are working toward doing whatever ends up driving down the cost of those 11.5Mp per eye displays via economies of scale as quickly as possible, as that's undoubtedly the most costly item on the BOM. If they can do that with smaller displays at a finer pitch without compromising quality that's great, they can use higher magnification on the lenses. But Vision Pro 2 might just as well use displays with a higher pitch if that's what works economically.

 

[A///]

But Vision Pro 2 might just as well use displays with a higher pitch if that's what works economically.

When do you suppose this would come out? I'm holding off on getting one myself. I was not liking it yesterday but the more I read into it and the more I read into augmented reality my opinion which was juvenile at best and not posted but freely admitted to online now here in this here post has led me to get one eventually. 3500 is a steep hell of a price and I would prefer to put that kind of money towards an M3 powered MacBook Pro.

Short of kidnapping an Apple engineer who knows when they'll talk about the M3. I was thinking they'd say something anything yesterday but no, nothing. very disappointing!

 

[Mopetar]

My guess would be that we don't hear anything about M3 until Apple launches a product with it this fall or early next year.

The Vision Pro seems like a well-designed piece of kit, but it's too niche of a product category for me to consider buying one. Maybe in five years someone will have found some uses for AR that a traditional computer can't accomplish or only does so less effectively, but to me it's a $3,500 toy and that's too hard to swallow. If they could get the cost down to $1,000 I'd possibly buy one even if I don't have any particular use for it, but there's too many other toys I'd rather have for $3,500.

 

[eek2121]

My guess would be that we don't hear anything about M3 until Apple launches a product with it this fall or early next year.

The Vision Pro seems like a well-designed piece of kit, but it's too niche of a product category for me to consider buying one. Maybe in five years someone will have found some uses for AR that a traditional computer can't accomplish or only does so less effectively, but to me it's a $3,500 toy and that's too hard to swallow. If they could get the cost down to $1,000 I'd possibly buy one even if I don't have any particular use for it, but there's too many other toys I'd rather have for $3,500.

Did I miss something? It isn’t tethered to a Mac, right? If that is the case you should add in the cost of building a PC. A decent PC + Valve Index could easily be comparable in price.

Hopefully the local Apple Store will have them available for tryout.

If it IS tethered, that would mean the price is too high.

Waiting for reviews, but I would consider one, especially if Apple nails the software ecosystem.

 

[trivik12]

#1. It's microOLED, not microLED - different display technologies.

#2. They quoted 23 MP total is 11.5 MP per eye - which is roughly 3.4K x 3.4K per eye.

It's not bleeding edge though - they quote a 7.5 µm pixel pitch, but a French company was doing 4.7 µm pixel pitch microOLED in 2012, and a 2.5 µm pixel display was announced at SID 2019.

It's only bleedng edge if you don't read the tech news often enough.

Apple and their marketing. I was impressed thinking its Micro LED. This is just an OLED display with their fancy marketing. Only thing is it seems to use RGB sub pixels instead of WOLED of LG TV. I dont think Samsung's AMOLED is also RGB. That makes this glass ridiculously expensive considering you have to lug around a battery pack as well.

 

[soresu]

I dont think Samsung's AMOLED is also RGB

It used to be arly on when they started using it for smartphones, but switching to other pixel arrangements saves costs so they did.

That being said these days RGB is not the necessary solution for color reproduction quality it once was when you have photoluminescent quantum dots that can convert blue light so efficiently to red and green with a conversion layer film in place of a dye/pigment based color filter.

Samsung's QD-OLED panels do this, and I'm pretty sure that they managed to cut costs on their microLED production by simplifying the placement to just blue µLED's by doing the same thing there as well.

In time Samsung will replace QD-OLED and possibly even microLED too with nanorod LEDs for the blue emissive element which is inorganic (should be longer lasting at much higher brightness) like microLED but much easier to produce at scale.

 

[Doug S]

When do you suppose this would come out? I'm holding off on getting one myself. I was not liking it yesterday but the more I read into it and the more I read into augmented reality my opinion which was juvenile at best and not posted but freely admitted to online now here in this here post has led me to get one eventually. 3500 is a steep hell of a price and I would prefer to put that kind of money towards an M3 powered MacBook Pro.

Short of kidnapping an Apple engineer who knows when they'll talk about the M3. I was thinking they'd say something anything yesterday but no, nothing. very disappointing!

It would be far easier to guess when an M3 Macbook Pro comes out than when we'll see Vision Pro 2! Since the first one isn't coming out until early next year it is probably safe to say it would be no sooner than midyear 2025.

We will probably see price cuts on the this one well before Vision Pro 2 comes out, if it sells well enough (with "well" determined by how it compares to Apple's internal projections) that they can get better pricing for components. Like how the original iPhone got a price cut. Its possible the second one might be introduced at a lower price than whatever the first one is selling for at the time, and the first one immediately discontinued.

It is interesting that it has "Pro" in the name, which may imply that a non-Pro version will come out down the road. I wonder what it would cut? It is hard to see what could be removed without compromising it...maybe the thing where people can see your "eyes" through it though I can't imagine that would save a lot of money. It could be that what we have now would be what a future Vision (non Pro) has and be introduced when the Pro line can be lighter and more like swim goggles or wraparound sunglasses than ski goggles?

 

[Muadib]

Apple is a cellphone maker, and that's pretty much it. Apple had a 7.2% market share of global PC shipments in Q1 2023. Apple had a 7.2% market share of global PC shipments in 2022. Apple had a 20.5% market share of phone sales so far in 2023.

 

[soresu]

Apple is a cellphone maker, and that's pretty much it. Apple had a 7.2% market share of global PC shipments in Q1 2023. Apple had a 7.2% market share of global PC shipments in 2022. Apple had a 20.5% market share of phone sales so far in 2023.

Any idea what share of the tablet market they have?

I'd assume it's pretty high as Google neglected Android's tablet interface for years and MS Surface sales are not exactly huge either.

 

[repoman27]

Apple is a cellphone maker, and that's pretty much it. Apple had a 7.2% market share of global PC shipments in Q1 2023. Apple had a 7.2% market share of global PC shipments in 2022. Apple had a 20.5% market share of phone sales so far in 2023.

Yeah, Apple sells a lot of phones, but they're also the 4th largest OEM in terms of global PC shipments. So what are you saying? That only Lenovo, HP, and Dell PCs are worth considering? Practically any auto manufacturer would kill for 7.2% marketshare. Also both Gartner and IDC had Apple at 9.8% for 2022.

 

[trivik12]

I doubt M3 based MBA will launch this year. They just launched 15" MBA with M2 this week. I dont think Apple refreshes their products that quickly. I think we will 1st see N3B based chip only for 15 pro/max. May be Apple is waiting on N3E to enter mass production before moving M class chips to 3nm class. After all 1gen N3B is not forward compatible with future processes.

 

[repoman27]

Any idea what share of the tablet market they have?

I'd assume it's pretty high as Google neglected Android's tablet interface for years and MS Surface sales are not exactly huge either.

38% for 2022, but 49.2% for Q4'22, according to IDC.

 

[Muadib]

Yeah, Apple sells a lot of phones, but they're also the 4th largest OEM in terms of global PC shipments. So what are you saying? That only Lenovo, HP, and Dell PCs are worth considering? Practically any auto manufacturer would kill for 7.2% marketshare. Also both Gartner and IDC had Apple at 9.8% for 2022.

Auto is a bit different. Apple hasn't anything to do with auto.

 

[repoman27]

Auto is a bit different. Apple hasn't anything to do with auto.

Well, that's not true either, but my point was that Mercedes is still a serious car maker even though they only have 2.9% market share.

 

[repoman27]

I doubt M3 based MBA will launch this year. They just launched 15" MBA with M2 this week. I dont think Apple refreshes their products that quickly. I think we will 1st see N3B based chip only for 15 pro/max. May be Apple is waiting on N3E to enter mass production before moving M class chips to 3nm class. After all 1gen N3B is not forward compatible with future processes.

Apple essentially bought 100% of TSMC's N3 capacity for 2023, and will probably never use N3E as a result. They'll likely go N3 -> N3S -> N3P.

I expect all of the new iPhones introduced in September to have an A17 manufactured on N3, and iPad Pros and MacBook Airs with M3's manufactured on N3 to follow in October. I also expect the 13-inch MacBook Pro and M1 MacBook Air to finally be discontinued, but both the M2 MacBook Airs to remain in the lineup. At some point they should do something with the iMac as well.

 

[Eug]

I doubt M3 based MBA will launch this year. They just launched 15" MBA with M2 this week. I dont think Apple refreshes their products that quickly. I think we will 1st see N3B based chip only for 15 pro/max. May be Apple is waiting on N3E to enter mass production before moving M class chips to 3nm class. After all 1gen N3B is not forward compatible with future processes.

This is ancient history, but it still bugs me.

Back in 2000 I told everyone that I believed Apple would release a 12" G4 PowerBook. Nobody believed me. And then in November 2000 Apple released... yet another 15" G4 PowerBook. No 12" G4 PowerBook to be seen. I was very disappointed because I needed a G4 to upgrade from my 12" G3 iBook, and I loved that 12" form factor. However, since I needed the G4, I bought the 15" PowerBook.

Two months later in January 2001, they released the 12" PowerBook. Arrggh!

 

[Doug S]

May be Apple is waiting on N3E to enter mass production before moving M class chips to 3nm class. After all 1gen N3B is not forward compatible with future processes.

I think that's unlikely. Apple has always used the same process for Apple Silicon as was used for the iPhone SoC with the matching cores, even when a better one was available. And in this case N3E isn't really better - it is less dense especially for cache. It might be cheaper, but Apple prices things such that saving a few bucks per die is not a concern.

 

[jpiniero]

I think that's unlikely. Apple has always used the same process for Apple Silicon as was used for the iPhone SoC with the matching cores, even when a better one was available. And in this case N3E isn't really better - it is less dense especially for cache. It might be cheaper, but Apple prices things such that saving a few bucks per die is not a concern.

There really isn't any point in using the original N3 since you could just use N4 instead. Which is cheaper/transistor and comparable quality to the original N3. The point of using N3E is that the quality is better.

 

[Ajay]

Apple is a cellphone maker, and that's pretty much it. Apple had a 7.2% market share of global PC shipments in Q1 2023. Apple had a 7.2% market share of global PC shipments in 2022. Apple had a 20.5% market share of phone sales so far in 2023.

Increasingly, Apple is become a services provider. Their hardware (particularly the OSes running on them) on the vehicle for selling more services. Also interesting, Apple and Samsung make 90% of the profit in the mobile phone industry. Most, apparently, are only banking a couple pennies on the dollar or worse.

 

[Glo.]

Increasingly, Apple is become a services provider. Their hardware (particularly the OSes running on them) on the vehicle for selling more services. Also interesting, Apple and Samsung make 90% of the profit in the mobile phone industry. Most, apparently, are only banking a couple pennies on the dollar or worse.

Do not be surprised if they will also offer in distant-or-not future: "Hardware-as-a-service".

 

[jpiniero]

Do not be surprised if they will also offer in distant-or-not future: "Hardware-as-a-service".

Well.. they do offer an iPhone subscription service... and a lot of iPhones are financed in general.