4 ms·

Citation? Edit - I'm getting downvoted but if you're going to suggest that Apple are departing from the ARMv8 instruction set - which is a really important poi

Citation? Edit - I'm getting downvoted but if you're going to suggest that Apple are departing from the ARMv8 instruction set - which is a really important point if true and which I've not seen any evidence for - then you really need to supply a citiation.

virtue3 6y ago
Apple is making a really strong push to differentiate it's chips from ARM. A few of the mac sites are claiming it's "Apple Silicon" and not "ARM". I believe the heart of it is that Apple has "followed the ARM spec" but did not use ARMs actual silicon designs. I don't really know what the backing of this is either. I'm sure they added a few of their own instructions. And I read that they single handedly pushed the ARM platform to 64bit (citation needed, definitely not sure if that's really true).
- saagarjha 6y ago
  It’s easier to just tweak some system registers than to do that (and indeed this is how Apple implements their proprietary “in-silicon” features).
- Followerer 6y ago
  "Apple Silicon" is a literal truth. The silicon design, the microarchitecture, is theirs, not ARM's. The architecture, this includes the ISA but also many other things that have to be taken into consideration in CPU design (exception model, consistency, virtual memory, virtualization,...), is ARM's. They simply don't want to tie their brand to ARM's, which is fair enough, Apple's brand is much more valuable than ARM's. Regarding the push for a 64-bit chip, I've heard the exact opposite. Aarch64 (64-bit ARM) was an ARM design without a customer, Apple were the first to buy into it. I've heard that many said it was a premature jump, and there was a lot of scepticism within ARM that they'd be able to sell it (this happened when ARM was selling mobile designs exclusively, with no intentions of getting into servers). Still, they went ahead with it, and was an unexpected success.
andai 6y ago
HN seems to dislike too much conciseness -- I guess a single-word comment, even if it's a good reply, comes across as impolite or low effort (for the lack of tone in text).
- klelatti 6y ago
  Thanks. (Please don't downvote me!)
izacus 6y ago
I'm digging through history to find an article about Apple's LLVM patches to add a custom instruction only present on A series chip. Due to Sillion announcement it's kinda hard to find - but they did add at least one instruction to ARM instruction set. From this, and from the very very strong marketing push to NOT use the name "ARM" from Apple, I have a suspicion that Apple Sillicon instruction set won't be a fully standard ARM holdings instruction set
- klelatti 6y ago
  Thanks - I guess I would draw a big distinction between adding a new instruction as part of being first to a new version of ARMv8 - which then becomes part of the standard ISA, and adding a permanently Apple only instruction. Would be very disappointed if it's the latter. Agreed that the Apple Silicon branding was very strong but assumed that it was just to distinguish themselves with consumers from those who will also use ARM on the desktop.
- tyingq 6y ago
  There are the AMX machine learning on-die accelerators. I assume there's some new instructions to talk to those.
  - rrss 6y ago
    They are probably just peripherals, like the GPU. I'd be very surprised if Apple strayed from the ARMv8 specification and added new instructions for those accelerators.
    - tyingq 6y ago
      See this post: https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=187087&curpostid=187087 https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=187087&curpost...
      - rrss 6y ago
        That whole thread is just speculation, same as what we are doing here. See this post: https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=187087&curpostid=187119 https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=187087&curpost...

virtue3 6y ago

Apple is making a really strong push to differentiate it's chips from ARM. A few of the mac sites are claiming it's "Apple Silicon" and not "ARM". I believe the heart of it is that Apple has "followed the ARM spec" but did not use ARMs actual silicon designs. I don't really know what the backing of this is either. I'm sure they added a few of their own instructions. And I read that they single handedly pushed the ARM platform to 64bit (citation needed, definitely not sure if that's really true).

saagarjha 6y ago
It’s easier to just tweak some system registers than to do that (and indeed this is how Apple implements their proprietary “in-silicon” features).
Followerer 6y ago
"Apple Silicon" is a literal truth. The silicon design, the microarchitecture, is theirs, not ARM's. The architecture, this includes the ISA but also many other things that have to be taken into consideration in CPU design (exception model, consistency, virtual memory, virtualization,...), is ARM's. They simply don't want to tie their brand to ARM's, which is fair enough, Apple's brand is much more valuable than ARM's. Regarding the push for a 64-bit chip, I've heard the exact opposite. Aarch64 (64-bit ARM) was an ARM design without a customer, Apple were the first to buy into it. I've heard that many said it was a premature jump, and there was a lot of scepticism within ARM that they'd be able to sell it (this happened when ARM was selling mobile designs exclusively, with no intentions of getting into servers). Still, they went ahead with it, and was an unexpected success.

andai 6y ago

HN seems to dislike too much conciseness -- I guess a single-word comment, even if it's a good reply, comes across as impolite or low effort (for the lack of tone in text).

klelatti 6y ago
Thanks. (Please don't downvote me!)

izacus 6y ago

I'm digging through history to find an article about Apple's LLVM patches to add a custom instruction only present on A series chip. Due to Sillion announcement it's kinda hard to find - but they did add at least one instruction to ARM instruction set. From this, and from the very very strong marketing push to NOT use the name "ARM" from Apple, I have a suspicion that Apple Sillicon instruction set won't be a fully standard ARM holdings instruction set

klelatti 6y ago
Thanks - I guess I would draw a big distinction between adding a new instruction as part of being first to a new version of ARMv8 - which then becomes part of the standard ISA, and adding a permanently Apple only instruction. Would be very disappointed if it's the latter. Agreed that the Apple Silicon branding was very strong but assumed that it was just to distinguish themselves with consumers from those who will also use ARM on the desktop.
tyingq 6y ago
There are the AMX machine learning on-die accelerators. I assume there's some new instructions to talk to those.
- rrss 6y ago
  They are probably just peripherals, like the GPU. I'd be very surprised if Apple strayed from the ARMv8 specification and added new instructions for those accelerators.
  - tyingq 6y ago
    See this post: https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=187087&curpostid=187087 https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=187087&curpost...
    - rrss 6y ago
      That whole thread is just speculation, same as what we are doing here. See this post: https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=187087&curpostid=187119 https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=187087&curpost...