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It does. The point is how Apple could use so much silicon space for the CPU in the SoC. Most AP and CPUs are designed to be general purpose as possible, so ther
by kbumsik 6y ago
It does. The point is how Apple could use so much silicon space for the CPU in the SoC. Most AP and CPUs are designed to be general purpose as possible, so there are some spaces used for unnecessary interfaces. But Apple could use those spaces for CPU. Also Apple could increase the die size without thinking about profit in chip production because they earn money from their devices, so by selling SoCs like others.
No other companies can do silicon business like Apple.
- beagle3 6y agoThat doesn’t sound reasonable to my (electrical engineer but 15 years since last involvement in processor design) ears. Intel has enough product lines that there are no “unnecessary interfaces”; what were the unnecessary interfaces in the Intel chip used by Apple? Similarly, so does Qualcomm and the tens of other of ARM licensees - any mass market design can find or customize a core with no meaningful dead weight. It may be a contributing factor, but I have not seen anything to indicate it’s very important. I give the “many small things done right” theory much higher likelihood - just as in the case if the iPhone, there wasn’t any specific thing that wasn’t done before - except for a winning combination.
- mschuster91 6y ago> what were the unnecessary interfaces in the Intel chip used by Apple? Everything Management Engine related, for one.
- ithkuil 6y agoDo we have any indication apple has a similar management cpu buried somewhere?
- mschuster91 6y agoAll the new models have the T2 chip.
- phkahler 6y agoAVX512 is a waste of transistors for most workloads.
- beagle3 6y agoYes. But Apple has the neural accelerators which are a waste of transistors for most workloads, and Intel has a bunch of chips without AVX512. So that does not fit the GPs claim that the M1 is fast because Apple does vertical integration and others have to support many systems.
- EricE 6y ago"But Apple has the neural accelerators which are a waste of transistors for most workloads" Based on? Many Apple frameworks tie into those accelerators; including frameworks like Metal that one wouldn't necessarily expect. Another strength of Apple - as a programmer your workloads can gain automatic acceleration as frameworks are extended to leverage new hardware. Note this isn't anything new; it's been going on for years already.