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Apple's follow-up to M1 chip goes into mass production for Mac
- sneak 5y agoI know a lot of people waiting for this one, myself included. Here's hoping Asahi Linux is ready around then! I'm guessing the 2021 MacBook Pro is going to be the fastest laptop ever made.
- gregoriol 5y agoEvery generation is "the fastest ever made". The question is more: will this one be the Pro version?
- sneak 5y agoI didn't mean just Apple. I just meant the fastest laptop money can buy.
- postalrat 5y agoThe fastest laptop money can buy has always been available. I guess this is the first time you are considering buying one?
- sneak 5y agoSometimes I fantasize about printing a t-shirt that simply says "shut up, you know what I meant".
- tailspin2019 5y agoI’ll buy two
- mmmmmbop 5y agoMaybe their two requirements for a laptop were it being (1) an Apple product and (2) the fastest laptop money can buy.
- guywhocodes 5y agoSurely not every mbp has been the fastest laptop ever made. Has this in fact at any given point in time actually been true? This could be it tho, but there are probably some desktop TDP chip current gen laptops out there.
- BurningFrog 5y agoI expect every mac user at my job to get one.
- mikece 5y agoWhile this news is about "a rumor according to sources familiar with the matter" it's obvious that Apple will be doing this at some point. Whether it's the M2 or if there will be a new letter designator (X-series silicon for eXtreme performance? Apple X1?) I am very interested to see what the performance numbers will be for an ARM-powered workstation rocking 16 to 32 high power cores. Aside from the Ampere eMAG, is a 16+ core ARM-powered workstation even a thing yet? (I don't count Amazon's Gravaton chips in this discussion because I cannot own a machine on my desktop powered by one).
- mciancia 5y agoThere is something available for building workstations. Not sure what about performance though. https://www.solid-run.com/arm-servers-networking-platforms/honeycomb-workstation/ https://www.solid-run.com/arm-servers-networking-platforms/h...
- hajile 5y agoM2 seems very unlikely to me because that will create product misinformation easily. Imagine the following M1 -- 4 A14 cores M2 -- 8 A14 cores M3 -- 4 A15 cores That "third generation" sounds better, but is actually inferior to the second generation. X1 or M1x seem much more likely. It's the same reason why they made an A12x instead of calling it A13. They probably need 3 designs, but economies of scale begin to be a problem. A14 and M1 are now selling in the millions, so they get a huge benefit. More importantly, they are in devices that get replaced a bit more frequently. M1x (8-16 cores) will be in bigger iMac and laptops. They don't sell nearly as many of these. In addition, yields on the larger chip will be lower. Finally, people with these devices tend to keep their machines longer than phones, tablets, or cheaper laptops. The 16-64-core chips are a major potential headache. If they go chiplet, then no big problem (actually, the M1x as two M1 chiplets seems like a desirable direction to head). If it is monolithic, the very limited sales and production will drive prices much higher. A logical way to offset this would be bigger orders with the excess being sold to Amazon (or others) to replace their mini cloud, but that's not been mentioned publicly.
- mikece 5y ago
- sesteel 5y agoIf Apple is having this kind of success, it seems they should look to compete in the data center with this or the following generation of chips. I wonder if it is a good time to invest in Apple.
- lumost 5y agoI'm really curious how this will play out. DataCenters haven't been apple's market for a long time, and the requirements of datacenter customers are kinda anti-apple these days. More likely I would see Apple making an exclusive server chip licensing arrangement with ARM or something similar.
- sesteel 5y agoHigh throughput at relatively low power. To me, it seems like a match made in heaven. There is the practicality of building rock solid containerization on these CPUs. I don't know where that stands, but it seems like an obvious fit.
- lumost 5y agoIt would be great, but do you see Apple making commodity datacenter hardware for running Linux/Windows?
- pjmlp 5y agoI doubt that they would bother with the 2nd coming of macOS Server for anything other than Apple shops.
- jfb 5y agoWhat's in it for Apple? I'm not trying to be glib, here, but unless there were some Mac only server functionality, nobody would buy an Apple ARM powered datacentre machine.
- mcintyre1994 5y agoWhat if Rosetta 2 was that Mac only server functionality? I don't know that they'd do it, but from M1 Mac reviews it sounds like M1 + Rosetta 2 will run at least some x86 code faster and more power efficiently than any competitor. I don't know how feasible it is to scale that up to a datacenter though, and I expect MacOS licensing costs would wipe away any power efficiency gains. But I do wonder if they could hypothetically scale up and beat the best Intel/AMD have to offer just using Rosetta 2 to translate x86 code.
- rvz 5y agoEven earlier than expected. Perhaps my suspicion to skip M1 to go for M2 was completely right. It doesn't hurt to wait a little or perhaps skip the first gen versions due to the extremely early software support at the time, rather than getting last year's model (Nov 2020) and suffering from the workarounds and hacks to get your tools or software working on Apple Silicon. I won't have a wobbly software transition unlike most M1 early adopters. Afterwards, I'll most certainly skipping M1 to something higher. (Likely M2) Like I said before, wait for WWDC and don't end up like this guy. [0] Those on Intel (Especially those on 2020), no need to run for the M1, Just skip it and go for M2 or higher. Downvoters: Here's another foot-gun Apple hid behind the hype squad. [1] For the iPad Pro, if you bought the 2020 version, your keyboard is incompatible with the M1 version meaning you have to fork another $350 for a new one that works. At the time of the Macbook Air M1 launch (Nov 2020), tons of software issues, even the recovery system fell apart for most people for M1. Even upgrading to this on launch day right here with those issues was an instant no deal. Once again Intel Mac users, plenty of time to migrate to something even better. (M2 or higher) [0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/i-sold-my-old-ipad-pro-to-backflip-and-now-i-have-cash-for-an-m1-model/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/i-sold-my-old-ipad-pro-to-back... [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/04/new-12-9-inch-ipad-pro-doesnt-support-the-previous-magic-keyboard/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/04/new-12-9-inch-ipad-p...
- barbazoo 5y agoThat link is just an ad for a service called Backflip. What does that have to do with this?
- LysPJ 5y agoI've been extremely happy with my M1 Air. I waited until Golang and Docker were available (around Jan 2021), but I haven't suffered any workarounds or hacks. To be honest, it has all been much smoother than I expected, but YMMV.
- gkilmain 5y agoI have an M1 and I love it. Sure, there were some early issues like chrome crashing all the time and some packages not working but I haven't run into any issues as of late.
- enraged_camel 5y agoIs Apple going to be affected by the chip shortages we have been hearing about?
- spamizbad 5y agoProbably not since they likely didn’t scale back their orders in 2020.
- kristofferR 5y agoI had to wait a month to get my Macbook Air M1 here in Norway. Was quite a painful wait (as my Macbook 12' got water damage, with the SMC limiting in to 1Ghz).
- ajmurmann 5y agoTaiwan also has a severe water shortage. I'd assume that's still a threat to production for Apple. https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2021/04/22/2003756133 https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2021/04/22/20...
- totalZero 5y agoNikkei says they have already postponed some Mac and iPad production. Not sure how reliable that story is, but so far it doesn't look like customer orders are at all delayed. I bought a nonstandard one when this article came out, and they delivered it a week ahead of schedule. https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/MacBook-and-iPad-production-delayed-as-supply-crunch-hits-Apple https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/MacBook...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- AmVess 5y agoApple tends to buy fab capacity in very large chunks. IIRC, they bought all of TSMC's 5nm capacity for a year.
- usefulcat 5y ago
- matsemann 5y agoIs anything known about the chip? The deal breaker of M1 (for me) as it currently stands is the amount of RAM it can handle (16 GB). Edit: Mistyped 16 as 1, sorry about the confusion
- dieortin 5y agoI think you mean 8GB?
- kasperni 5y agoI think he meant 16GB.
- brianwawok 5y agoI think you mean 16GB?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jdauriemma 5y agoI own an M1 Macbook Air with 16GB of RAM
- dwaltrip 5y agoYep. Unfortunately the M1 MacBook Pro currently only goes up to 8GB.
- varispeed 5y agoI hate to say that, but I am likely going to buy M2 Mac. I don't like Apple and their anti-competitive tactics, but I admit they won their spot for now. However, as soon as good PC competitor comes in, I'll drop Apple like a hot potato.
- tmccrary55 5y agoI'm really hoping Alder Lake or a similar AMD product gets PC closer to M1+ performance and battery consumption. The M1 chip is amazing but I'm a tiling window manager man.
- hajile 5y agohttps://ianyh.com/amethyst/ https://ianyh.com/amethyst/
- ripply 5y agoI also am a tiling window manager man and tried that a few years back (as well as everything else on the market) when I had a mac from work, unfortunately, without real support from the OS, these are all just poor mans windows managers and can't compare to the real thing. I gave up trying to use any of them and ended up installing a virtual machine where I could actually use one.
- galangalalgol 5y agoI'm a gnome addict. If you ever asked yourself "who are they building this monstrosity for?". That would be me, it fits my exact preferences in a workflow out of the box. Unity irritates me to no end, and my wife's mac is almost unusable for me which she greatly appreciates.
- _joel 5y agoNot sure why you're being down voted, I use Amethyst and love it.
- reader_mode 5y ago
- cainxinth 5y agoAll very impressive, but here's my question: what are they going to do about graphics cards? Will they find a way to connect existing graphics cards to their CPU? Will they make their own ARM-based graphics cards? Will AMD or Nvidia?
- jeroenhd 5y agoNvidia? Ha, never in a million years. Support for one of the recent Radeons was recently added to macOS, so it's a possibility. No reason the M1 can't do PCIe, as far as I know the only thing keeping eGPUs from working on the M1 right now is software support. It could also be that the driver was added because of the extensibility of the Pro, though. My expectation is that they'll keep the GPU on the same level, which is "good enough for most users", and focus on hardware acceleration for tasks like video and audio encoding and decoding instead. With an ML chip and fast audiovisual processing, most consumers don't need a beefy GPU at all, as long as you stick to Apple's proprietary standards. Seems like a win-win for Apple if they don't add in an external GPU.
- robenkleene 5y agoAnd are you thinking the solution for people who do need a powerful GPU is eGPUs and Mac Pros?
- Pulcinella 5y agoWell unless Apple can pull an M1 and do with their GPUs what they did with their CPUs and start to embarrass Nvidia and AMD with lower power, higher performance GPUs.
- jeroenhd 5y agoI don't think Apple cares much for those people, they can buy the Mac Pro or a PC if they really need the GPU power. eGPUs can be a nice addition, but I doubt Apple will release an official eGPU system. You're already limited to AMD GPUs after the clusterfuck of a fight Apple and Nvidia had, and I doubt Intel's Xe lineup will receive much love for Apple right after the Intel CPUs have been cut from Apple's products. Honestly, for the kind of work that does need an arbitrary amount of GPU horsepower, you're barking at the wrong tree if you buy Apple. Get yourself a Macbook and a console or game streaming service if you want to play video games, and get yourself a workstation if you want to do CAD work. I don't think the work Apple would need to put into a GPU solution would be worth it, financially speaking.
- dan1234 5y agoHere's hoping this chipset will support 32GB+ RAM and more than 2 displays!
- mortenjorck 5y agoThis would be quite an accelerated timeline if Apple ships its second-generation M-series chip only eight months after the first. Typically, they’ve followed a sort of six-month tick-tock pattern for the A-series, launching a new major revision in the fall with the new iPhone, and launching an “X” revision in the spring with new iPads. I think most observers have been expecting an “M1X” for Apple's first pro-oriented ARM Macs, so an M2 already would be a surprise.
- Reason077 5y ago> "I think most observers have been expecting an “M1X” for Apple's first pro-oriented ARM Macs" I'm pretty sure that's what this is, rather than a next-generation ("M2") chip. It will likely have the same cpu core designs as the M1, just more of them. And possibly paired with the new, long rumored "desktop class" Apple GPU.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- simondotau 5y agoGiven the timing, I doubt it. Apple has established a fairly stable cadence of core improvements every 12 months. Enough time has elapsed between the M1 and this new chip that I'd expect it to have more in common with the "Apple A15" generation SOC than the A14/M1. As to what Apple's choice of marketing name, that's entirely arbitrary. (For what it's worth, my guess is they're ditching "X" suffixes and will designate higher spec variants with other prefix letters e.g. the "P1" chip.)
- rsynnott 5y agoI'm not sure about that, because the M1 cores are, in essence, quite old at this point; they're pretty similar to the A12 cores. Apple usually does quite a major micro arch refresh every few years; it's probably coming up to time.
- ksec 5y agoConsidering M1 doesn't support LPDDR5, and A15 will be in a similar time frame. I would not be surprised it will be a M2 ( Based on A15 ), or more likely a M2X.
- samgranieri 5y agoI really want the next MacBook Pro to support driving two 4K monitors over thunderbolt and have an option to buy 32 gigs of ram.
- lathiat 5y agoMe too
- bhouston 5y agoI would prefer just one 6K or 8K monitor personally at a size of say 55" with a wide ratio. Simpler setup. No post in the middle. Something like this but bigger with higher resolution, and maybe a bit more height vertically (this one is a bit too wide for its height in my opinion): https://www.samsung.com/ca/monitors/gaming/super-ultra-wide-dual-qhd-32-9-gaming-monitor-49-inch-lc49rg90ssnxza/ https://www.samsung.com/ca/monitors/gaming/super-ultra-wide-... I think that dual 4K is the old way, single 6K/8K ultra wides are the future. That said I am rocking the dual 4Ks on the Mac Mini M1 and it works great: https://twitter.com/BenHouston3D/status/1384693982249340935 https://twitter.com/BenHouston3D/status/1384693982249340935
- meepmorp 5y agoDo you have periodic weirdness on the thunderbolt monitor? Every so often, my m1 mini wakes or boots so that there’s a vertical misalignment by a pixel or two about halfway across. It’s like the desktop was cut in half and taped back together slightly crooked.
- alanwreath 5y agoYES -- it's not just me! At first I thought my monitors were somehow broken (which is unfortunate as I paid a bit extra for name brand LG). I suspected something, as each monitor is plugged into an M1 computer (one's a Mac mini M1 and the other a MacBook Air m1). Both exhibit the visual problem you describe on a random basis.
- 5y ago
- hu3 5y agoI might consider buying one when it is able to run proper Linux. And even then it's probably going to be limited to ARM Linux only.
- rswail 5y ago"Limited to the CPU type that is installed"... how is that a "limit"?
- hu3 5y agoFor my workloads that is a limitation that must be considered when purchasing hardware. It's the same reason why I don't buy ARM Chromebooks. It's going to take years to run proper Linux on M1 and even more for the ecosystem to catch up to x64_86. For me it's reasonable to keep using AMD Ryzen 5000 which is faster than M1 on my multithreaded workloads anyway despite using 7nm. Plus it has better GPU, more memory, more storage, more ports and supports multiple monitors. Sure it is more expensive, but that's just because my segment is geared to pros with higher requirements. Apple currently has no laptop offering on this tier.
- amelius 5y agoHow is this possible in this time of shortage of IC production capacity?
- soapdog 5y agopeople wanting more cores, more memory, eGPU support, and I'm here just wanting them to have multiple colours...
- kumarvvr 5y agoSomewhere, the collective whos who of the silicon chip world is shitting their pants. Apple just showed to the world how powerful and efficient processors can be. All that with good design. Customers are going to demand more from Intel and the likes. Just imagine Apple releasing the Mx chips for server infrastructure. Intel ought to be sweating bullets now. edit: a word.
- samgranieri 5y agoI don't think Apple will go back to creating server infrastructure again. In the interim, I know Amazon created an ARM server chip called Graviton, and I'd like to run a kubernetes cluster on that
- kumarvvr 5y agoI hope they do, because, ultimately, it will be good for the environment.
- Jonnax 5y agoYes, you can run a kubernetes cluster using it. It's been available for a year: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/08/amazon-eks-support-for-arm-based-instances-powered-by-aws-graviton-now-generally-available/ https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/08/amazon-ek...
- qaq 5y agoThey should do a cloud they have some very unique tech like foundationDB based SQL RDBMS and M chips and prob a lot more cool thingies.
- nonameiguess 5y agoA lot of other fairly standard cloud native technologies don't yet work on ARM, notably istio, even though most implementations of kubernetes itself will work. This is the major thing preventing me from being able to use a Macbook even for development (at least an M1, but that's all I have).
- tambourine_man 5y ago
- bloqs 5y agosoldered ram and SSD coupled with SSD Wear issues leading to a less than 3 year lifespan of a laptop makes all of this a hard pass for me, and should be for any sensible person too.
- rvz 5y agoNot sure why you are downvoted, but this is true is it not? It's even worse with Apple Silicon machines since if the SSD dies, well the whole thing is bricked. Unlike the Intel Macs. It seems the Mac aficionados (Especially the M1 fanatics) are in denial of the degree of lock-in with the Mac as it gradually descends into become nearly as locked in as an iPhone. I'd give it 0.1 out of 10 for repairability. At least with the latest Surface line-up the SSD can be upgraded.
- wmf 5y agoYou can wear out any SSD. There's no evidence that Apple SSDs are any worse than others. You need to have backups. You need to understand that Apple products are sealed and disposable and only buy them if your use case can accommodate that.
- argvargc 5y agoEven if true (it isn't - SSD issues appear to be mostly related to as-yet non-native software), a 3 yr lifespan for the price of 6 yrs worth of half-speed laptop makes sense.
- st_goliath 5y agoCool! So now (or at least soon-ish) I can get my hands on some dirt cheap, practically never used M1 hardware on eBay to play around with? I wonder if Apple is familiar with the Osborne effect[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect
- canuckintime 5y agoEdit: double posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26957269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26957269
- indigo945 5y agoThis is not an oxymoron. You can both feel that the M1 chip is superior to previous designs in most aspects, and admit that it is lacking in others.
- canuckintime 5y agoI consider the ability to drive more than one external display to be directly related to the power and design of the chip.
- herrkanin 5y agoPeople can be both legitimately impressed by the power and efficiency of Apple's first desktop-class processor, while also understand that certain more niche features were out of scope of a first version. I'm certainly expecting this to be fixed by the second generation, and if it's still missing I won't be quite as understanding.
- canuckintime 5y ago> People can be both legitimately impressed by the power and efficiency of Apple's first desktop-class processor, while also understand that certain more niche features were out of scope of a first version. I'm certainly expecting this to be fixed by the second generation, and if it's still missing I won't be quite as understanding. I’m responding to a HN commenter who was not just impressed about the power of the M1 but hyperbolically asserts that it is better than everything else yet the next top voted HN comment demonstrates otherwise with a demand for downgraded feature. The tenor of those reactions are opposed and my aim is to reflect the nuance
- 5scale 5y agoFull article: https://web.archive.org/web/20210427125928/https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/Apple-s-follow-up-to-M1-chip-goes-into-mass-production-for-Mac https://web.archive.org/web/20210427125928/https://asia.nikk...
- seumars 5y agoMy wallet is ready for the next line of macbook pros.
- canuckintime 5y agoI’m reading somewhat incompatible reactions in the top level comments e.g. [1] > Somewhere, the collective whos who of the silicon chip world is shitting their pants. Apple just showed to the world how powerful and efficient processors can be. All that with good design. Customers are going to demand more from Intel and the likes. Another [2]: > I really want the next MacBook Pro to support driving two 4K monitors over thunderbolt and have an option to buy 32 gigs of ram. Meanwhile the last Intel MacBook Pro supports driving four (4!) 4K displays [4]. Apple silicon is far ahead in benchmarks but how does speeds and feeds translate into what customers actually want? Battery life is impressive but unfortunately not the usual differentiator during a worldwide pandemic. The M1 Macs are quite quiet (the first MacBook Air without a fan—in 2020!) meanwhile the Intel Surface Book was fanless in 2017. We shot the messenger of the recent Intel attack Apple ads [5] but message is still worth reading. I bought an M1 MBA and realized the speed didn’t make a difference as my consumer computer. For the first time in decades I’m not sure if Apple provides the most pleasurable experience. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26956336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26956336 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26955682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26955682 [4] https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT210754 https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT210754 [5] https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/17/justin-long-get-a-mac-intel-ad-campaign/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/17/justin-long-get-a-mac-i...
- Toutouxc 5y agoHow are the reactions incompatible? People like me, who don't need more than 16 GB of RAM and one monitor, are happy with the M1. Other people are waiting on the M1X/M2 chip to bring what they need. > meanwhile the Intel Surface Book was fanless in 2017 The MacBook was fanless in 2015 and, like many other fanless designs using Intel chips, it was slow.
- rvz 5y ago> Other people are waiting on the M1X/M2 chip to bring what they need. Well those people must have been bullish on Apple Silicon and 'not just' M1. They think its worth skipping over M1 rather than going all in on the 1st gen product which at the time had primitive support for most mainstream software, especially for developers. Maybe Apple knew that the M1 could not drive more than 1 monitor on the Macbook Air and in fact left that limitation in with a small disclaimer. Perhaps they will announce this capability in the M2 Macs.
- alkonaut 5y agoWhy a new SoC? Isn't the M1 basically maxiing out what can be done on a SoC, but what's missing is the version with external memory and GPU? They can refresh the core in the M1 of course, and I expect they will do that yearly like the AXX cores, but it would be weird to go even 2 generations of the SoC without addressing the pro cpu.
- wmf 5y agoApple could easily fit 2x-4x the performance on an SoC so that's what people expect the M1X and M1Z to be. Note that it's still an SoC if it has "external" memory (Apple's "unified memory" isn't what people think).
- alkonaut 5y ago> it's still an SoC if it has "external" memory I meant "soldered ram next to SoC with cpu and gpu cores", i.e. not DIMMs and 200W PCIe GPU. For a pro chip in a desktop form factor I think DIMMs and PCIe graphics are inevitable, and that's the interesting storyline in the evolution of the M1. We know they'll produce better M1's, but the integration with 3rd party graphics, the choice of DIMM type and so on is interesting.
- wmf 5y agoThey may never have DIMMs. Apple is crazy enough to solder 256GB and call it a day. People would complain... and then they'd still buy it.
- dcchambers 5y agoI haven't yet used an M1 mac but based on what I've read about it I have fully bought into the hype train. Hoping my next laptop will be a M2-powered MBP, assuming they can increase the maximum RAM to at least 32GB.
- lostgame 5y agoThere are rumours of a supposed M1X that may hit before the M2, so you may be waiting a little longer than you’d think. :) Of course, the Apple rumour mill; grain of salt, etc - but I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw an M1X that could, for instance - support 32GB of RAM by the end of the year - (which is the only blocker from me buying an M1) - and pop out the M2 next year maybe with an Apple-CPU-powered Mac Pro? Food for thought. :)
- dcchambers 5y agoYeah I guess 'M1X' vs 'M2' doesn't matter so much. As long as they've had time to work out any kinks from the first gen and increase the RAM, I'm all in.
- johnwalkr 5y agoThere's missing features (like number of USB ports) but no real kinks that I've come across. Although I don't need it, I tried parallels + ARM windows + x86 windows apps on a lark and it worked without any noticable performance issues.
- lostgame 5y agoWhoa. That's excellent to hear. Since they are non-upgradeable, I will certainly be waiting until a unit with at least 32GB RAM (ideally 64GB) before I'd upgrade at all and consider it future-proofed, but this is great to know!
- cehrlich 5y agoYes, I would expect them to have yearly M1, M2, M3, etc consumer-grade SoCs, and then alongside that yearly or maybe less-than yearly X-versions of the current SoC, with features like more RAM, more IO, etc. So 6 months from now you'll probably have the choice between an M2-based MacBook Air with better single core performance or an M1X-based MacBook Pro with more cores and more max. ram - unless they decide to do the reasonable thing and shift the regular and X versions to the same release cycle.
- vmception 5y agoThink they new chip will have a better RAM solution ultimately allowing for more RAM?
- AtlasBarfed 5y agoSo, M(n)+ or M(n+1) ? "tentatively known as the M2" Blasphemy! Plus then N+1!
- Someone 5y agoFTA: "the latest semiconductor production technology, known as 5-nanometer plus, or N5P. Producing such advanced chipsets takes at least three months” I know as good as nothing of this process, but I can’t imagine the latency from silicon wafer to finished product is 3 months. I also can’t imagine some inherent start-up delay for producing the first chip (but as I said: I know as good as nothing of this process), so where do those 3 months go? Is it a matter of “you have to be extremely lucky to hit so few minor issues that it only takes 3 months to have a first working product”?
- olliej 5y agoLatency for a chip is 4 weeks at the low end of complexity, and 12 weeks (3 months) at the high end of complexity. My mind was blown when I first found that out
- Someone 5y agoThanks. Also good to hear that I’m not the only one who finds that surprising.
- my_usernam3 5y agoFellow mind blown friend here!
- alberth 5y agoBesides the radio antenna (Qualcomm) that Apple is quickly replacing with their own, is there any other tech/chips inside Apple SoC that they don't design themselves?
- poyu 5y agoOh I think _they are_ getting into the radio chip business. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-commits-430-billion-in-us-investments-over-five-years/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-commits-430-bil...
- imwillofficial 5y agoI have an M1 MacBook Air, and I’m blown away. I cannot wait for a 16 inch MacBook Pro with whatever madness they have planned. I love the direction Apple is headed with their hardware.
- ojosilva 5y agoJust a side rant here... I'm really frustrated I can't monitor the Neural Engine's usage in the M1 in my MacBook Air. Apparently Apple did not build an API for extracting data points from the these 16 cores, so I can only watch what the CPU and GPU are doing when running and optimizing Tensorflow models while the NE remains a black box.
- bhewes 5y agoTo think a 36 year old architecture that Apple seeded is finally coming to fruition. I give them props for the long game for sure.
- darthrupert 5y agoWhen I was young, every time I got a new computer (which wasn't often, but it happened a few times), the new machine was absurd amounts faster than the previous one. Like 10 times more processing power and memory. I'm glad we can live that feeling again, even if just for a short while.
- walterbell 5y agoArm-based laptops that are competitive with Apple M1+ could arrive as early as 2023, powered by a Qualcomm SoC based on their $1.4B acquisition of Nuvia, lead by a team that designed Apple's M1, iPad and iPhone SoCs. This would likely run Windows for ARM and Linux. Hopefully it will also include hardware virtualization support, like M1. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=nuvia&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...