6 ms·

Apple produces one A series chip for the iPhones every year. How does that work?

secondaryacct 5y ago
It doesnt, still cant game with it.
tcoff91 5y ago
Baseless speculation: perhaps they do actually throw away chips? They only really target a premium market segment so perhaps it's not worth it to their brand to try and keep those chips.
- sdenton4 5y ago
  Turns out the Apple tax means you're also buying the three chips thrown away to produce your one...
  - gleenn 5y ago
    That's not really an Apple tax though, that's a cost of doing business tax. It's not like Intel and AMD and everyone else aren't effectively doing the same exact thing.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      Intel and AMD __literally__ sell those broken chips to the open marketplace, recouping at least some of the costs (or possibly getting a profit from them). Apple probably does the same strategy PS3 did: create a 1-PPE + 8-SPE chip, but sell it as a 1-PPE + 7-SPE chip (assume one breaks). This increases yields, and it means that all 7-SPE + 8-SPE chips can be sold. 6-SPE-chips (and below) are thrown away, which is a small minority. Especially as the process matures and reliability of manufacturing increases over time.
      - gleenn 5y ago
        Apple sells a 7 core and 8 core version of their M1 chips. Maybe Intel and AMD ship CPUs with even more cores disabled but it's not like Apple doesn't do this at all.
        qweqwweqwe-90i 5y ago
        Apple doesnt sell chips at all. Next.
        barbecue_sauce 5y ago
        Next?
        tcoff91 5y ago
        What are you talking about? Apple certainly sells chips -- you just have to buy an entire computer to get it.
      - rteuionwiv 5y ago
        I can confirm that 5000 desktop ryzen series has issues with turbo boost, basically if you disable turbo and stay on base clock then everthing is fine, but with turbo (CPB) enabled you get crashes and BSOD. I had this problem at work at my new workstation with ryzen 5900x. We RMAed it and new cpu works fine. From what i read it's pretty common problem, but it's strange that no on talks about it.
        pdimitar 5y ago
        Can the turbo boost maximum frequency value be lowered a little in the BIOS to try and alleviate the problem?
        rteuionwiv 5y ago
        I think yes, but if you buy cpu, you look at advertised speeds and you expect get them in your machine. From what i researched, to achive advertised clock frequencies you need to increase voltage to make it more stable. Some people reported silicon degradation after increasing voltages (it worked fine for week and then problems returned). You can read more info on this forum post: https://community.amd.com/t5/processors/ryzen-5900x-system-constantly-crashing-restarting-whea-logger-id/td-p/423321/page/55 https://community.amd.com/t5/processors/ryzen-5900x-system-c...
  - munificent 5y ago
    Waste is a factor in all production goods. Every fish you eat's price takes into account dealing with bycatch. Your wooden table's price accounts for the offcuts. It's the nature of making (or harvesting, or whatever) things.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Waste is an inherent inefficiency. In silicon manufacturing, the inefficiency is actually pretty low specifically because of the kind of binning that Intel and AMD do, that GP was complaining about. In a fully vertically integrated system with no desire to sell outside, the waste is realized. In a less integrated system the waste is taken advantage of. In theory capitalism should broadly encourage the elimination of waste - literally every part of the animal is used, for instance. Even the hooves make glue, and the bones to make jello.
- jimbob45 5y ago
  There's no way they throw away that much revenue. Not even Apple is that committed to purity. I'm sure they have a hush-hush deal with another company to shove their chips in no-name microwave ovens or something.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    Funny story about microwaves, theres basically only 2 main manufacturers. They're both in China, and you've never heard of them. But if you look at various brands in the US and take them apart, you'll see the only difference is the interface. The insides are literally the same. The only exception to this are Panasonic microwaves. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-microwave/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-microwave/ Granted, a microwave with a half broken M1 in it would be awesome.
    - colejohnson66 5y ago
      > The insides are literally the same. To be fair, is there anything particularly revolutionary that could be done with a microwave (short of "smart" features)? They all function the same: shoot specific frequency energy into the (possibly rotating) chamber. It would make sense that the guts are just a rebadged OEM part.
      - xxpor 5y ago
        I'd have guessed that brands would be able to differentiate themselves on even heating, how well the reheating sensors work, etc. But I guess not.
  - verall 5y ago
    It's not that much revenue because the marginal cost of an individual chip is very low. Given that apple has plenty of silicon capacity, throwing away say 5-10% of chips that come off the line is likely cheaper than trying to build a new product around them or selling them off to some OEM who needs to see a bunch of proprietary info to use them.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  No way; the half-busted chips go into low-cost products like the iPhone SE. It costs little to accumulate and warehouse them until a spot in the roadmap for a budget device arises.
  - officeplant 5y ago
    The SE series uses the same chips, but cheaps out in other ways by going with older body, older camera, older screen.
- hajile 5y ago
  You’ll likely see them in other products like lower end tablets or the Apple TV where lasering a core or two doesn’t matter.
minhazm 5y ago
Look at the Apple A12x. They disabled a GPU core in it for the iPad, and then in the A12z they enabled that core. This was likely to help with yields. Then with the M1 chips they decided to sell a 7 core version of the chip with the base level Macbook Air and save the 8 core version for the higher trims. Even Apple is susceptible to it. But Apple doesn't sell chips, they sell devices and they can eat the cost for some of these. For example if a chip has 2 bad cores instead of selling a 6 core version Apple is probably just scrapping it.
- inasio 5y ago
  The M1 (ok, in the 7 and 8 GPU core configurations) is in the Macbook air, Macbook pro, Ipad, Imac, and Mac mini...
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    All of those device perform exactly the same, as Apple has chosen the same power/thermal set point for all of them. This is going to start to look a lot different in coming years when the larger MacBook Pro transitions - I expect 2-3 more models there. Then when the Mac Pro transitions I expect another 2-3 models there. We'll start to see high-binned next-gen Apple Silicon parts moving to the MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro, and lower-binned parts making their way down-range.
  - reissbaker 5y ago
    Another commenter (dragontamer) pointed out elsewhere in the thread that Apple might be doing what Sony did for the PS3 (since Sony also made custom chips that had to perform identically in the end product): the strategy Sony took was to actually make better chips than advertised for the PS3, and disable the extra cores. That means that if one of the cores is broken, you can still sell it in a PS3; you were going to disable it anyway. Yields go up since you can handle a broken core, at the cost of some performance for your best-made chips since you disable a core on them. That could make sense for Apple; the M1 is already ~1 generation ahead of competitors, so axing a bit of performance in favor of higher yields doesn't lose you any customers, but does cut your costs. Plus, they definitely do some binning already, as mentioned with the 7 vs 8 core GPUs.

It doesnt, still cant game with it.

Baseless speculation: perhaps they do actually throw away chips? They only really target a premium market segment so perhaps it's not worth it to their brand to try and keep those chips.

sdenton4 5y ago
Turns out the Apple tax means you're also buying the three chips thrown away to produce your one...
- gleenn 5y ago
  That's not really an Apple tax though, that's a cost of doing business tax. It's not like Intel and AMD and everyone else aren't effectively doing the same exact thing.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Intel and AMD __literally__ sell those broken chips to the open marketplace, recouping at least some of the costs (or possibly getting a profit from them). Apple probably does the same strategy PS3 did: create a 1-PPE + 8-SPE chip, but sell it as a 1-PPE + 7-SPE chip (assume one breaks). This increases yields, and it means that all 7-SPE + 8-SPE chips can be sold. 6-SPE-chips (and below) are thrown away, which is a small minority. Especially as the process matures and reliability of manufacturing increases over time.
    - gleenn 5y ago
      Apple sells a 7 core and 8 core version of their M1 chips. Maybe Intel and AMD ship CPUs with even more cores disabled but it's not like Apple doesn't do this at all.
      - qweqwweqwe-90i 5y ago
        Apple doesnt sell chips at all. Next.
        barbecue_sauce 5y ago
        Next?
        tcoff91 5y ago
        What are you talking about? Apple certainly sells chips -- you just have to buy an entire computer to get it.
    - rteuionwiv 5y ago
      I can confirm that 5000 desktop ryzen series has issues with turbo boost, basically if you disable turbo and stay on base clock then everthing is fine, but with turbo (CPB) enabled you get crashes and BSOD. I had this problem at work at my new workstation with ryzen 5900x. We RMAed it and new cpu works fine. From what i read it's pretty common problem, but it's strange that no on talks about it.
      - pdimitar 5y ago
        Can the turbo boost maximum frequency value be lowered a little in the BIOS to try and alleviate the problem?
        rteuionwiv 5y ago
        I think yes, but if you buy cpu, you look at advertised speeds and you expect get them in your machine. From what i researched, to achive advertised clock frequencies you need to increase voltage to make it more stable. Some people reported silicon degradation after increasing voltages (it worked fine for week and then problems returned). You can read more info on this forum post: https://community.amd.com/t5/processors/ryzen-5900x-system-constantly-crashing-restarting-whea-logger-id/td-p/423321/page/55 https://community.amd.com/t5/processors/ryzen-5900x-system-c...
- munificent 5y ago
  Waste is a factor in all production goods. Every fish you eat's price takes into account dealing with bycatch. Your wooden table's price accounts for the offcuts. It's the nature of making (or harvesting, or whatever) things.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Waste is an inherent inefficiency. In silicon manufacturing, the inefficiency is actually pretty low specifically because of the kind of binning that Intel and AMD do, that GP was complaining about. In a fully vertically integrated system with no desire to sell outside, the waste is realized. In a less integrated system the waste is taken advantage of. In theory capitalism should broadly encourage the elimination of waste - literally every part of the animal is used, for instance. Even the hooves make glue, and the bones to make jello.
jimbob45 5y ago
There's no way they throw away that much revenue. Not even Apple is that committed to purity. I'm sure they have a hush-hush deal with another company to shove their chips in no-name microwave ovens or something.
- xxpor 5y ago
  Funny story about microwaves, theres basically only 2 main manufacturers. They're both in China, and you've never heard of them. But if you look at various brands in the US and take them apart, you'll see the only difference is the interface. The insides are literally the same. The only exception to this are Panasonic microwaves. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-microwave/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-microwave/ Granted, a microwave with a half broken M1 in it would be awesome.
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    > The insides are literally the same. To be fair, is there anything particularly revolutionary that could be done with a microwave (short of "smart" features)? They all function the same: shoot specific frequency energy into the (possibly rotating) chamber. It would make sense that the guts are just a rebadged OEM part.
    - xxpor 5y ago
      I'd have guessed that brands would be able to differentiate themselves on even heating, how well the reheating sensors work, etc. But I guess not.
- verall 5y ago
  It's not that much revenue because the marginal cost of an individual chip is very low. Given that apple has plenty of silicon capacity, throwing away say 5-10% of chips that come off the line is likely cheaper than trying to build a new product around them or selling them off to some OEM who needs to see a bunch of proprietary info to use them.
wayoutthere 5y ago
No way; the half-busted chips go into low-cost products like the iPhone SE. It costs little to accumulate and warehouse them until a spot in the roadmap for a budget device arises.
- officeplant 5y ago
  The SE series uses the same chips, but cheaps out in other ways by going with older body, older camera, older screen.
hajile 5y ago
You’ll likely see them in other products like lower end tablets or the Apple TV where lasering a core or two doesn’t matter.

minhazm 5y ago

Look at the Apple A12x. They disabled a GPU core in it for the iPad, and then in the A12z they enabled that core. This was likely to help with yields. Then with the M1 chips they decided to sell a 7 core version of the chip with the base level Macbook Air and save the 8 core version for the higher trims. Even Apple is susceptible to it. But Apple doesn't sell chips, they sell devices and they can eat the cost for some of these. For example if a chip has 2 bad cores instead of selling a 6 core version Apple is probably just scrapping it.

inasio 5y ago
The M1 (ok, in the 7 and 8 GPU core configurations) is in the Macbook air, Macbook pro, Ipad, Imac, and Mac mini...
- arcticbull 5y ago
  All of those device perform exactly the same, as Apple has chosen the same power/thermal set point for all of them. This is going to start to look a lot different in coming years when the larger MacBook Pro transitions - I expect 2-3 more models there. Then when the Mac Pro transitions I expect another 2-3 models there. We'll start to see high-binned next-gen Apple Silicon parts moving to the MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro, and lower-binned parts making their way down-range.
- reissbaker 5y ago
  Another commenter (dragontamer) pointed out elsewhere in the thread that Apple might be doing what Sony did for the PS3 (since Sony also made custom chips that had to perform identically in the end product): the strategy Sony took was to actually make better chips than advertised for the PS3, and disable the extra cores. That means that if one of the cores is broken, you can still sell it in a PS3; you were going to disable it anyway. Yields go up since you can handle a broken core, at the cost of some performance for your best-made chips since you disable a core on them. That could make sense for Apple; the M1 is already ~1 generation ahead of competitors, so axing a bit of performance in favor of higher yields doesn't lose you any customers, but does cut your costs. Plus, they definitely do some binning already, as mentioned with the 7 vs 8 core GPUs.