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Apple M2 Die Shot and Architecture Analysis – Big Cost Increase and A15 Based IP
- daguava 4y agoThere's a lot of claims of poached talent in the article, basically claiming [paraphrasing] "Apple, maintaining their stressful work env and not paying to shore that up lost some rockstars" How true is this? If they're on the money it's an excellent example of a talent retention miss leading to a demonstrable mediocrity in delivery.
- bombcar 4y agoI suspect we're looking at Apple implementing tick/tock, whether because they're forced to or because they want to - they've already been doing something similar on the iPhones, and supply constraint may make them do it on the chips, too. Few people are going to upgrade from the M1 to the M2 anyway, so it makes sense to keep powder dry for the M3.
- innocenat 4y agoIntel tick-tock was alternating microarchitecture change with process optimization every other year. It looks like M2 is neither of those, and it's already 2 year.
- dhanna 4y agoThe youngest, strongest RTL engineer I know jumped from Apple to Rivos.
- exhilaration 4y agoI'm still amazed at how jumping to a rival firm like this is possible in California, those of us in pretty much the rest of the country are locked behind non-competes.
- wbl 4y agoHorace Greely had the answer 150 years ago.
- happyopossum 4y agoThat’s quite an exaggeration - many states disallow or severely limit non-competes, and in many of the states that allow them, they are often unenforced, or easy to get around. So yeah - some people in some parts of the country are locked behind non-competes (if they aren’t willing to move), but it’s hardly everyone.
- wikibob 4y agoThat is a gross exaggeration of the situation. California has a total ban on non-competes. A very small handful of other states put restrictions on non-competes, but even those generally allow non-competition agreements if time limited, and the employee makes over ~$100k. It’s widely accepted that prohibiting non-competes has been a significant factor in the tech industry success in California. As one example, it is well known that Amazon aggressively enforces non-competes, even against line engineers.
- ksec 4y ago>Rivos [1], I hope that is not him. [1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/apple-lawsuit-says-stealth-startup-rivos-poached-engineers-steal-secrets-2022-05-02/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/apple-lawsuit-says-...
- InvaderFizz 4y agoLooking at another article from the same author[0], we'll have a pretty solid answer to the impact in September with the release of the A16. Apparently the A15 had very minimal CPU gains clock-for-clock over the A14. To quote from that article: "SemiAnalysis believes that the next generation core was delayed out of 2021 into 2022 due to CPU engineer resource problems. In 2019, Nuvia was founded and later acquired by Qualcomm for $1.4B. Apple’s Chief CPU Architect, Gerard Williams, as well as over a 100 other Apple engineers left to join this firm. More recently, SemiAnalysis broke the news about Rivos Inc, a new high performance RISC V startup which includes many senior Apple engineers. The brain drain continues and impacts will be more apparent as time moves on. As Apple once drained resources out of Intel and others through the industry, the reverse seems to be happening now." I was very optimistic on Apple on the CPU front until I read this today. Now I'm waiting to see how the A16 pans out for them to see if it's a two generation loss of progress, or just a single generation stumble. 0: https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/apple-cpu-gains-grind-to-a-halt-and?s=r https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/apple-cpu-gains-grind-to...
- skohan 4y agoReads like FUD to me
- AgentOrange1234 4y agoI don’t know Apple’s turnaround, but processors are released in products only long after their design is completed. Think at least several months, even likely a year+ between design and release. Nuvia started early enough to be a factor here. But Rivos wasn’t even founded until June 2021. To release now, M2 would already have been at finished with design by then.
- dijonman2 4y agoChip manufacturing is difficult, this reminds me of the Japanese entry into the semiconductor market. There is an excellent video on this for anyone interested in Japanese culture and the war against USA via semiconductors: https://youtu.be/bwhU9goCiaI https://youtu.be/bwhU9goCiaI
- dagmx 4y agoThe author has been pushing this conjecture for a year over the past year or so, and has been repeatedly called out on the Hardware reddit. I would recommend not taking their business conjecture without a giant pinch of salt. Just today they were claiming Apple has lost hundreds of engineers in the chip division. The idea that a single division somehow lost hundreds without the industry noticing is ridiculous.
- wmf 4y agoWhy do you think the industry hasn't noticed? If it's not hundreds, how many Apple employees have moved to Nuvia and Rivos?
- dagmx 4y agoIn multiples of tens, I would believe it. Upto a hundred over a couple years? That's a stretch but possible if you count a very wide range of roles. Multiple hundreds as they imply on Reddit? That would be catastrophic to any company, even one as large as Apple. You would certainly see it reflected in their job postings after even a few, let alone hundred+
- dylan522p 4y agoIt has noticed. Look at Apple architects, validation, layout, etc engineers moving to Nuvia + Rivos + Google + Amazon + Microsoft + Meta + Intel + Nvidia + AMD + Apple + Qualcomm. It's there.
- Josteniok 4y agoI wondered about this too and I like your advice about salt but apparently Apple is suing Rivos about this very thing: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/apple-lawsuit-says-stealth-startup-rivos-poached-engineers-steal-secrets-2022-05-02/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/apple-lawsuit-says-...
- drawingthesun 4y agoThe article says 40 employees not hundreds, but I imagine that 40 of Apple's top chip talent is going to hurt, that is a lot of brain power to lose! Seems some employees took more than themselves to Rivos. "at least two former Apple engineers took gigabytes of confidential information with them to Rivos."
- somethoughts 4y agoLikely its a bit of hyperbole to get views. I think there's always a desire to work at a startup in SV and in a low/zero interest rate environment - VCs could probably fund something in the chip design space. But now that interest rates are going up, I think that will be a lot tougher and Apple will be a better position due to their direct access to free cashflow - to either compete or acquire them at a later date. Its also an observation that w.r.t. chip design and consumer electronics, the pay is general lower than say Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Web 2.0 based startups (i.e. AirBnb, Uber, DoorDash), etc. My presumption is that this is because as a chip designer or embedded software/hardware engineer, the capital costs to do anything interesting on your own as a startup (i.e. tape out a chip, mass production in Asia, etc.) are very very high and very fixed and very up-front. Even fabless semiconductors and factory-less product design companies that outsource manufacturing to Asia would need to go find outside capital for IC masks or HW prototypes. You also need a cadre of supply chain, biz dev, marketing, ad spend, channel sales distribution. Compare that to AirBnb, Dropbox where you need a good idea, a handful of 10x SW engineers and an AWS account that can scale as you grown and a free tier for onboarding customers. Therefore, Google/FB etc. need to pay more to prevent these folks from going off and starting their disruptor (i.e. Insta, WhatsApp, SalesForce).
- Sirened 4y ago++, totally. I think a lot of people are linking CPU engineering with SW engineering because they both work with the same product at the end of the day, but the industries are radically different both from a business and culture standpoint. The "go fast and break things" mentality that pervades the SV software startup scene is, in my experience, no where to be found in hardware because it's both incredibly costly to make any mistakes and because most CPU divisions are lead by people with decades of experience (rather than the mishmash that is startups). The author's argument here about talent leaving after having "gotten Apple off x64" is such an odd take. It's not as if Apple started designing these chips after the M1 launched—the pipeline for even small SoCs is often five or more years. The bit about Rivos is especially bizarre because that company was founded in 2021, well after this chip must have been taped out.
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- modeless 4y agoSeems silly to me. CPU designs are important, but these companies have more than enough engineers to make competent designs even with some people leaving. There's another factor that completely dominates. It's all about the fabs. Intel lost the performance lead, was it because of their designs? No, it's because they lost the lead in fabs. AMD passed Intel, was it because of their designs? No, it's because they use TSMC's fabs and TSMC passed Intel. Apple blew everyone away with M1, was it because of their designs? No, it's because they paid TSMC boatloads of money for exclusivity on their latest fabs. Apple M2 disappoints on CPU performance, is it because of their designs? No, it's because TSMC's next fab isn't ready yet so they're still using the same fabs as M1. These days I care more about which TSMC process node my chips came from than which company designed them. I need a new computer but I'm waiting until next year because there will be a wave of new CPUs and GPUs coming out with much better performance. Better designs? Maybe a little, but it's really because they're all moving to TSMC N4. I really hope Pat Gelsinger can save Intel's fab business because we really need another company that can compete in fabs and Samsung isn't doing too hot either.
- iosystem 4y agoI thought AMD succeeded because they managed to get Jim Keller and other great engineers? Unsure why you're placing your hope on a CEO.
- wmf 4y agoNo one person deserves the credit for a processor and if Intel had delivered on their roadmap (Ice Lake in 2017 and Alder Lake in 2019) AMD would be dead today.
- BackBlast 4y agoAMD survived bulldozer. They survived not because of the quality of their chips, but because there exists a sizable x86 market that is literally anything except Intel.
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- matwood 4y agoWork culture can mean a couple of things though. Building and delivering the M1 was probably a great experience. Maybe like the hardware equivalent of greenfield development. The M1 is out, and now it's about continual refinements. The people who love going from 0->1 are not always the same people who enjoy going from 1->100. And while Apple isn't the max payer in SV, I'm sure they pay fine compared to other big tech. The issue is, chips are big right now and no existing big tech can compete compensation wise with shares in a growth chip startup. With VC drying up, I expect this to change back in Apple (and other big techs) favor.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago> The bleeding hasn’t stopped in recent years as Apple’s work culture simply isn’t the best and other firms, namely the hyperscalers such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta, are paying more than Apple was to poach talent. I really hate that word “poach”. Using “attract” works much better in that sentence. I find it appalling how entering into a free contract with someone to give them more money for their work is called “poaching”. Words matter, and how we describe something has an impact in how it is viewed (“piracy” is another example).
- dymk 4y agoSeems like quibbling over words that everybody understands the meaning and intention of
- GoOnThenDoTell 4y agoWords matter. Apple failed to retain these employees with cash, its not some hunting game where you catch some unsuspecting engineer
- compiler-guy 4y ago... who is owned by some other firm.
- dymk 4y agoYeah, they matter, and everybody* understands what "poaching" means when used this way * - including you
- ulfw 4y agoSo what is it? Work culture or pay? How many really move from Apple to Amazon for the work culture?
- ianai 4y agoIt’s corporate America. “Performance improvement plans” and “at will states” are also part of the same lexicon. (Judge that as you will.) On poaching though, Apple could choose to respond to the market signal by improving their work culture and policies to retain talent. I do wonder about the supply for these highly skilled hardware engineers though.
- hemantv 4y agoApple generally pay very poorly for quality of talent. I would love to live in world where 10x engineers are rewarded 10x. Right now it's 25% better pay than median.
- 999900000999 4y agoMost 10xers aren't constantly 10x. You might have a 10x year and then a 1.1x year. With tech it's a bit of a catch 22, most engineers really become effective after 18 to 24 months. At this point you know how to really get things done in your org. But after 2 years you can job hop and make significantly more, so your interest might not align 100% with the company's
- hunterb123 4y agoThis. I'll make a product for someone in a few weekends, working 18 hours a day for a few weeks straight, Then I won't have the energy for a few months. Probably evens out to an employer, but imo you do better when the snowball is rolling longer without breaks. That's the secret to 10x. ADHD and don't stop. Stopping is the enemy, you can't see the forest. I hear regulation is nice, but tell my mind that. Been at my employer for 10 years making cool shit if that matters.
- postalrat 4y agoYou think it's rough being 10. Trying being 10,000x.
- hunterb123 4y agoSleep deprivation is the limit. Whatever multiplier you are, you're capped by that.
- koonsolo 4y agoIf you want 10x pay you need to start your own company. No other way to get a 10x.
- thimkerbell 4y agoAs a casual reader, I notice the "die shot bleeding" and wonder if that was intended. I hope it wasn't, but I also hope not to have to wonder this about the posts here.
- ganbatekudasai 4y agoWhat do you mean? "die shot bleeding"?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dylan522p 4y agoAuthor here. What do you mean die shot bleeding?
- brokencode 4y agoWhy does the biggest and richest company in the world ever have to suffer from talent leaving because they don’t get paid enough? It just doesn’t make any sense.
- walterbell 4y agoNew companies offer an absence of technical and cultural debt. Nuvia was purchased for $1.4 billion by Qualcomm, a couple of years after being started.
- jltsiren 4y agoWhy would compensation be the decisive factor for top talent in a highly compensated field? They have probably already made enough money that they don't have to work for living, and they are probably genuinely interested in their work because they made it to the top. Apple processors are already in the market, so the most interesting work is done, and it may be time to start looking for new challenges.
- lostlogin 4y agoThe article specifically lists culture and money as the reasons people are leaving. It also adds that there is a need for a challenge amongst a successful and accomplished group. “ The bleeding hasn’t stopped in recent years as Apple’s work culture simply isn’t the best and other firms, namely the hyperscalers such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta, are paying more than Apple was to poach talent.”
- riffraff 4y agoIf you consider Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you have "esteem" at a high place. Money becomes a proxy for that. Big management negotiate higher pay all the time not because there is a difference between earning 30 or 40 millions, but because they need to feel their own "value" go up. This is discussed at length in "thinking fast and slow", iirc.
- marcinzm 4y agoSpending goes up with compensation in general. Then it becomes the norm and you don't want to lose it. Sure you can retire but probably not at a level where you can fly first class everywhere, stay in five star hotels and stay on private islands. That aside once people have kids the sky is the limit for giving them the "best life possible." Nanny, private tutors, private schools (and/or a house in Cupertino since it's Apple), college funds, house with good amenities nearby, etc. I probably missed some costs in there.
- drawingthesun 4y agoA few comments here about how Apple is losing a lot of top talent to rival Rivos, a stealth startup. What would Rivos business model be? I’m genuinely interested seems interesting to me. Would they be positioning themselves as the next Qualcomm? Or perhaps sell a superior chip to Apple at some point?
- ece 4y agoThey could open up documentation and invite others to build an ecosystem around a RISC-V socket and variety of motherboards. I don't know what their plans might be, but this is the kind of RISC-V ecosystem I'd like to see, like early-x86.
- ksec 4y ago>What would Rivos business model be? Would they be positioning themselves as the next Qualcomm? Realistically speaking, most likely to be ARM, IMG or CEVA type of IP companies. But since it is RISC-V, and we are on HN, I wont be surprised if some people expect them to give out their design for free.
- MBCook 4y agoThanks to being based on their phone chips Apple came out of the gate with the M1 and cleaned everyone’s clock on performance-per-watt while putting in good to great numbers in general (as a CPU). But their rate of improvement on the A series has been slowing on general tasks. They’re on the same process node, and only increased frequency a bit. Is it really that surprising that performance didn’t take a massive jump? You can’t keep up a 20% increase in normal stuff every release for long. You can use accelerators like they do for video and ML to help some tasks. You can improve your GPU some and make it a little bigger. It seems like in some places people are trying to push a “the M2 is a failure because it’s not a huge leap above the M1“ narrative. But no one exits that from Intel or AMD every year anymore. Or Apple’s A-series. So why here?
- Gigachad 4y agoTech journalism needs a dramatic story. So every product is either world changing or a complete failure.
- jsiaajdsdaa 4y agoTo their credit, with many billions on the line, products do have a bit of a tendency to be a failure if all they can do is tread water.
- Gigachad 4y agoNot if the rest of the market is the same. Most products get yearly updates that are completely unremarkable. No one gets hyped up for the next year edition of a car.
- tssva 4y agoM1 to M1+ would be like the release of the next year edition of a car. M1 to M2 would be like the release of the next generation of a car. A lot of people get hyped up for the release of the next generation of a car.
- Invictus0 4y agoIf the author had taken the time to define some acronyms, this would have been way more accessible to a layman. Had to give up halfway through.
- GeekyBear 4y agoFrom Anandtech's deep dive into the performance and efficiency cores in the A15, which are reused here in the M2. Performance Cores: >Apple A15 performance cores are extremely impressive here – usually increases in performance always come with some sort of deficit in efficiency, or at least flat efficiency. Apple here instead has managed to reduce power whilst increasing performance, meaning energy efficiency is improved by 17% on the peak performance states versus the A14. If we had been able to measure both SoCs at the same performance level, this efficiency advantage of the A15 would grow even larger. In our initial coverage of Apple’s announcement, we theorised that the company might possibly invested into energy efficiency rather than performance increases this year, and I’m glad to see that seemingly this is exactly what has happened, explaining some of the more conservative (at least for Apple) performance improvements. Efficiency Cores: >The A15’s efficiency cores are also massively impressive – at peak performance, efficiency is flat, but they’re also +28% faster. The comparison against the little Cortex-A55 cores is more absurd though, as the A15’s E-core is 3.5x faster on average, yet only consuming 32% more power, so energy efficiency is 60% better. Conclusions: >In our extensive testing, we’re elated to see that it was actually mostly an efficiency focus this year, with the new performance cores showcasing adequate performance improvements, while at the same time reducing power consumption, as well as significantly improving energy efficiency. The efficiency cores of the A15 have also seen massive gains, this time around with Apple mostly investing them back into performance, with the new cores showcasing +23-28% absolute performance improvements, something that isn’t easily identified by popular benchmarking. This large performance increase further helps the SoC improve energy efficiency, and our initial battery life figures of the new 13 series showcase that the chip has a very large part into the vastly longer longevity of the new devices. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16983/the-apple-a15-soc-performance-review-faster-more-efficient/2 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16983/the-apple-a15-soc-perfo...
- sushicat 4y agoThis is a really great article from Anandtech with benchmarks and analysis, it explained a lot of things. > The overall performance gains are quite disappointing when you factor in the raw cost increase that comes with this new M2 and the fact that it has been nearly 2 years since the M1’s introduction. Also the logic of article in the title is little weird to me. M1 was introduced in the same year as A14, they use the same core; while M2 uses the same core as A15, which introduced 1 year after M1. So technically M2 increased the performance by 18% in one year, not two years. Though I'm curious why Apple didn't use A16's core in M2.
- travisgriggs 4y agoIt’s dated, and the subject has shifted to processor design, but The Apple Product Cycle (https://misterbg.org/AppleProductCycle.html https://misterbg.org/AppleProductCycle.html) still sums it all up pretty well.
- kzrdude 4y agoWhat does the M2 mean for linux support, any porting needed?
- ParadisoShlee 4y agoExcellent read into the realities of making a SOC. Every SOC I continue to keep my eyes open for MTE being used in a mainstream ARMv8.5 processor... If we're to believe that M3 is marked to be using ARMv9 as well. Maybe 2024 is the year?
- butterisgood 4y agoMy thoughts are it doesn’t even matter that much. Apple is not selling me a CPU - they’re selling me a laptop. Yeah it’s a critical piece but Apple is all about your overall outcome. If they were a CPU “arms dealer” like Intel or AMD it’d matter more I think.