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This certainly applies to random manufacturers, but not necessarily Apple. Do they pay royalties to ARM at all? And of course, they could create any ISA extensi

by _ph_ 4y ago

This certainly applies to random manufacturers, but not necessarily Apple. Do they pay royalties to ARM at all? And of course, they could create any ISA extension, if they wanted. But currently they seem to be heading more into the direction of creating additional compute units (like the neural processors) rather than adding new instructions to the CPUs.

throwawaylinux 4y ago
> This certainly applies to random manufacturers, but not necessarily Apple. Do they pay royalties to ARM at all? I don't know if there are any public details about license and royalty structure for Apple, but this is ARM Ltd's core business and it's how they make their money. So, probably. > And of course, they could create any ISA extension, if they wanted. I'm not sure about that. I think licensees are bound by certain requirements to implement the architecture faithfully. Now Apple obviously has a huge sway and could lobby ARM to make changes it wants. But it does not necessarily have final control of that either. > But currently they seem to be heading more into the direction of creating additional compute units (like the neural processors) rather than adding new instructions to the CPUs.
- desiarnezjr 4y ago
  Apple co-founded ARM. I recall somewhere that they did have a very special license, but can't recall the details.
- _ph_ 4y ago
  As Apple is a co-founder of ARM and holds and architectural license, I think the chances are high, that they neither pay any or significant royalties and have a lot of freedom. As could be seen in the special switch making the memory semantics of the Apple Silicon match that of x86, making the job of Rosetta easier.
  - throwawaylinux 4y ago
    Apple holds an architectural license, but I've never heard it suggested they can avoid paying royalties to ARM before. Doesn't seem very likely to me.
- garaetjjte 4y ago
  >I'm not sure about that. I think licensees are bound by certain requirements to implement the architecture faithfully Apple designs already deviate from ARM64 specifications, like adding custom instructions: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/HW:Apple-Instructions https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/HW:Apple-Instruction...

by _ph_ 4y ago

throwawaylinux 4y ago

> This certainly applies to random manufacturers, but not necessarily Apple. Do they pay royalties to ARM at all? I don't know if there are any public details about license and royalty structure for Apple, but this is ARM Ltd's core business and it's how they make their money. So, probably. > And of course, they could create any ISA extension, if they wanted. I'm not sure about that. I think licensees are bound by certain requirements to implement the architecture faithfully. Now Apple obviously has a huge sway and could lobby ARM to make changes it wants. But it does not necessarily have final control of that either. > But currently they seem to be heading more into the direction of creating additional compute units (like the neural processors) rather than adding new instructions to the CPUs.

desiarnezjr 4y ago
Apple co-founded ARM. I recall somewhere that they did have a very special license, but can't recall the details.
_ph_ 4y ago
As Apple is a co-founder of ARM and holds and architectural license, I think the chances are high, that they neither pay any or significant royalties and have a lot of freedom. As could be seen in the special switch making the memory semantics of the Apple Silicon match that of x86, making the job of Rosetta easier.
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  Apple holds an architectural license, but I've never heard it suggested they can avoid paying royalties to ARM before. Doesn't seem very likely to me.
garaetjjte 4y ago
>I'm not sure about that. I think licensees are bound by certain requirements to implement the architecture faithfully Apple designs already deviate from ARM64 specifications, like adding custom instructions: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/HW:Apple-Instructions https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/HW:Apple-Instruction...