5 ms·

But let's say that a 5nm Ryzen comes out ahead for mobile usage. (But not necessarily by very much.) Chips like the M1 (or ideally, something similar made avai

But let's say that a 5nm Ryzen comes out ahead for mobile usage. (But not necessarily by very much.) Chips like the M1 (or ideally, something similar made available to other device manufacturers) is still really interesting. The ARM architecture can scale down better than x86/x64 can, allowing a device maker to hit low end performance targets with less cost than x86 chips can manage. For the low end, it also tends to provide better power consumption for a fixed performance target than the x86 offerings. This makes M1 type chips really interesting for any manufacturer who want to make devices that span a huge scale of performance requirements, from slow kiosks performance range to the decent laptop range. All being the same ISA makes sharing firmware and applications across the lineup easier than having to switch to x86/x64 above some threshold. It also does not hurt that M1 means that the really popular for development Apple devices are now running on ARM, which helps ensure that more software has been ported to (and/or tested on) ARM devices. ARM's weak memory model for example is something that can trip up a lot of software that tries to implement low lock algorithms, but whose designers were only familiar with the x86/x64 memory model.

oblio 6y ago
> This makes M1 type chips really interesting for any manufacturer who want to make devices that span a huge scale of performance requirements, from slow kiosks performance range to the decent laptop range. This is purely theoretical. Apple will <<never>> sell its chips to other companies. So if you were expecting Apple Silicon on its own to start a revolution, that's never going to happen.
- zerkten 6y ago
  The poster stated "M1 type chips". That is not setting an expectation that Apple will sell their chips. Microsoft already have a Surface product with an ARM chip that didn't get updated in this round AFAIK. It already has solid ARM performance, but it's not as good as M1. It was let down with how well x86 emulation worked, but there seem to have been improvements including x64 support. If they focused on improvements with the chip design then they could see improvements along the lines of Apple. It's a question of whether the investment is made rather than whether it's possible.
  - zucker42 6y ago
    No other company has the volume to economically build on TSMC's leading node.
  - foobiekr 6y ago
    While a lot of the M1 advantage over Intel and AMD is process node, the advantage over the rest of the ARM and RISCV ecosystem is substantially more than that. The team that built the M1 is a collection of top tier ASIC designers that came from several acquisitions, from PA Semi forward. The Qualcomms and Caviums and so on just aren't in the same league. Lord spare me another tarball of garbage and random kernel patches called an "SDK." They don't really have the same bench and don't pay top dollar and it shows. It is unlikely that there will be an M1 equivalent from any of those guys. Intel? AMD? Absolutely.
- ragnarok451 6y ago
  Honest question - why not?
  - cercatrova 6y ago
    Why would they? Apple likes vertical integration, it's not advantageous to them to sell off a differentiating part of their product, the hyped processor, so that others can use it, often competitors. Back in the 90s, when Jobs was gone, Apple licensed its OS and almost went bankrupt as you could simply get a cheaper clone of Apple's computers with the OS on them. They won't repeat that mistake again.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
Not really in any other way than speculation. No one can use M1 tech unless they steal it. Sure they can build what they think are similar designs to it but they don't know if they're going down the right path. M1 isn't just another ARM design, it's solely done by apple.

oblio 6y ago

> This makes M1 type chips really interesting for any manufacturer who want to make devices that span a huge scale of performance requirements, from slow kiosks performance range to the decent laptop range. This is purely theoretical. Apple will <<never>> sell its chips to other companies. So if you were expecting Apple Silicon on its own to start a revolution, that's never going to happen.

zerkten 6y ago
The poster stated "M1 type chips". That is not setting an expectation that Apple will sell their chips. Microsoft already have a Surface product with an ARM chip that didn't get updated in this round AFAIK. It already has solid ARM performance, but it's not as good as M1. It was let down with how well x86 emulation worked, but there seem to have been improvements including x64 support. If they focused on improvements with the chip design then they could see improvements along the lines of Apple. It's a question of whether the investment is made rather than whether it's possible.
- zucker42 6y ago
  No other company has the volume to economically build on TSMC's leading node.
- foobiekr 6y ago
  While a lot of the M1 advantage over Intel and AMD is process node, the advantage over the rest of the ARM and RISCV ecosystem is substantially more than that. The team that built the M1 is a collection of top tier ASIC designers that came from several acquisitions, from PA Semi forward. The Qualcomms and Caviums and so on just aren't in the same league. Lord spare me another tarball of garbage and random kernel patches called an "SDK." They don't really have the same bench and don't pay top dollar and it shows. It is unlikely that there will be an M1 equivalent from any of those guys. Intel? AMD? Absolutely.
ragnarok451 6y ago
Honest question - why not?
- cercatrova 6y ago
  Why would they? Apple likes vertical integration, it's not advantageous to them to sell off a differentiating part of their product, the hyped processor, so that others can use it, often competitors. Back in the 90s, when Jobs was gone, Apple licensed its OS and almost went bankrupt as you could simply get a cheaper clone of Apple's computers with the OS on them. They won't repeat that mistake again.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

Not really in any other way than speculation. No one can use M1 tech unless they steal it. Sure they can build what they think are similar designs to it but they don't know if they're going down the right path. M1 isn't just another ARM design, it's solely done by apple.