Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

Eug · Nov 10, 2020

M1
5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LP-DDR4
16 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 12 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache
(Apple claims the 4 high-effiency cores alone perform like a dual-core Intel MacBook Air)

8-core iGPU (but there is a 7-core variant, likely with one inactive core)
128 execution units
Up to 24576 concurrent threads
2.6 Teraflops
82 Gigatexels/s
41 gigapixels/s

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Products:
$999 ($899 edu) 13" MacBook Air (fanless) - 18 hour video playback battery life
$699 Mac mini (with fan)
$1299 ($1199 edu) 13" MacBook Pro (with fan) - 20 hour video playback battery life

Memory options 8 GB and 16 GB. No 32 GB option (unless you go Intel).

It should be noted that the M1 chip in these three Macs is the same (aside from GPU core number). Basically, Apple is taking the same approach which these chips as they do the iPhones and iPads. Just one SKU (excluding the X variants), which is the same across all iDevices (aside from maybe slight clock speed differences occasionally).

EDIT:

M1 Pro 8-core CPU (6+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 16-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 24-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 32-core GPU

M1 Pro and M1 Max discussion here:

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M1 Ultra discussion here:

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M2 discussion here:

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Second Generation 5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LPDDR5, up to 24 GB and 100 GB/s
20 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 16 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache

10-core iGPU (but there is an 8-core variant)
3.6 Teraflops

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Hardware acceleration for 8K h.264, h.264, ProRes

M3 Family discussion here:

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M4 Family discussion here:

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igor_kavinski · Monday at 12:37 PM

Eug said:
On the iPad Pro itself are Pages and Numbers, and on the iMac are Safari x 2 and Netflix overlaid on top in the corner, with the audio playing from the iMac.

Don't understand your photo. What's the point of connecting the iPad to the iMac if the iPad display isn't being replicated on the iMac?

Eug · Monday at 12:44 PM

igor_kavinski said:
Don't understand your photo. What's the point of connecting the iPad to the iMac if the iPad display isn't being replicated on the iMac?

Multi-tasking. All of those apps are from the iPad Pro. The iMac in the picture is just acting as an external monitor. That's what Target Display Mode means.

Furthermore, I am using a Magic Keyboard, so I have trackpad control for both screens. (Obviously the iMac isn't a touchscreen.)

I'm not actually doing this though, since I have a Mac mini desktop setup at home anyway.

You can mirror the iPad display on the external display too if you want. See the switch for that in the menu in the pic above.

FlameTail · Monday at 1:09 PM

AMD is the first customer to adopt SoIC technology, with its latest MI300 chip using SoIC combined with CoWoS solution. Apple, TSMC’s primary customer, is reportedly interested in SoIC and plans to incorporate it with Hybrid molding technology for Mac products. Small-scale trials are currently underway, with mass production anticipated between 2025 and 2026. NVIDIA and Broadcom are also collaborating in this field.

[News] TSMC Reportedly Secures 4 Major Clients for SoIC, Including Apple, NVIDIA and Broadcom | TrendForce Insights

Amid NVIDIA's leadership in the AI wave, demand for CoWoS (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate) has tripled, driving TSMC to aggressively expand CoWoS capacity...

www.trendforce.com

Apple M5 will leverage advanced packaging.

Thibsie · Monday at 1:54 PM

USB4 is TB3 AFAICT (mostly).

FlameTail · Monday at 2:05 PM

Thibsie said:
USB4 is TB3 AFAICT (mostly).

You haven't heard of USB4 v2, have you...

name99 · Monday at 2:17 PM

FlameTail said:
Very good sir, but why in this thread?

Because it's technical details about a chip that has similarities to the subject of this thread!
I for one am very glad to have my attention drawn to it.

name99 · Monday at 2:21 PM

Eug said:
Hmmm... If that is accurate, that gives me a bit of hope for the M4 Mac mini. However, I'm afraid that if Apple does adopt 4 Thunderbolt ports on the M4 Mac mini, they'll just eliminate the 2 USB-A ports.

Currently, the M2 Mac mini has 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports and 2 USB-A ports.
The M2 Pro Mac mini has 4 Thunderbolt 4 ports and keeps the 2 USB-A ports.

View attachment 101757

It doesn't take much (high-end core, bump to 32 GB, 10Gb ethernet) to get to the price of the lowest Max Studio.
If those three upgrades matter to you (and they may well if you obsess over number of ports rather than just buying a $15 USB hub) just get the Max.

Eug · Monday at 2:32 PM

name99 said:
It doesn't take much (high-end core, bump to 32 GB, 10Gb ethernet) to get to the price of the lowest Max Studio.
If those three upgrades matter to you (and they may well if you obsess over number of ports rather than just buying a $15 USB hub) just get the Max.

I don't need 32 GB, 10 GigE or a high end SoC.

I just want the ports, as I have multiple external drives, and use a USB-C monitor as well (and would consider adding a second one at a later date). I currently use a USB4/Thunderbolt hub, which converts one of my existing USB4/Thunderbolt ports to three USB4/Thunderbolt ports plus one USB-A port.

The $15 hubs definitely don't cut it. The hub I bought is about US$130 now and AFAIK uses the reference Intel motherboard design, but even then, it's just not the same as built-in ports. The hub I bought is the Plugable 5-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 Hub.

smalM · Monday at 4:19 PM

Doug S said:
Maybe Apple has eliminated separate USB controllers and is using TB controllers for maximum flexibility?

I don't think so.
Besides TB M4 has the same kind and number of I/O ports as M3 just arranged slightly different.

poke01 said:
Pure idiocy, getting rid of USB-A on desktops.
The Intel iMacs were much better.

Pure idiocy, getting rid of ADB on desktops.
The Motorola Macs were much better.

poke01 · Monday at 4:30 PM

smalM said:
Pure idiocy, getting rid of ADB on desktops.

Here the difference, I have zero ADB devices and a lot more USB-A devices in my house and I bet it’s mostly the same every house hold.

There is a reason why the Studio/Mac Pro and mini still have USB-A ports. The iMac is pure form over function this generation.

smalM · Monday at 5:11 PM

At some point in the past nobody had a USB device and nearly every Mac owner had ADB devices.
And there were Parallel Port, RS422, SCSI of different kinds and FW400 & FW800 and so on and so on...
Get over it.
BTW USB-A/USB-B and their mini and micro siblings are all shitty and the faster they go extinct the better.

name99 · Monday at 5:45 PM

Eug said:
I don't need 32 GB, 10 GigE or a high end SoC.

I just want the ports, as I have multiple external drives, and use a USB-C monitor as well (and would consider adding a second one at a later date). I currently use a USB4/Thunderbolt hub, which converts one of my existing USB4/Thunderbolt ports to three USB4/Thunderbolt ports plus one USB-A port.

The $15 hubs definitely don't cut it. The hub I bought is about US$130 now and AFAIK uses the reference Intel motherboard design, but even then, it's just not the same as built-in ports. The hub I bought is the Plugable 5-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 Hub.

Fair enough.
I thought this pricing was interesting - the actual cost of a Pro to Max upgrade is basically nothing!

Thibsie · Monday at 5:47 PM

FlameTail said:
You haven't heard of USB4 v2, have you...

Oh please, one more non sense...
USB is such a mess !

Ajay · Monday at 6:00 PM

Thibsie said:
Oh please, one more non sense...
USB is such a mess !

The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from! /s

Thibsie · Monday at 6:02 PM

Ajay said:
The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from! /s

Still, USB is plagued by deceiving 'standards'.
Remember USB3 high speed and USB3 ful speed ? Lol.

Eug · Monday at 6:50 PM

smalM said:
Besides TB M4 has the same kind and number of I/O ports as M3 just arranged slightly different.

Would you hazard to guess the I/O on an M4 (non-Pro) Mac mini from the die shot?

name99 said:
I thought this pricing was interesting - the actual cost of a Pro to Max upgrade is basically nothing!

This is par for the course for Apple. It has often done this with the Mac minis and with other Macs, for the upsell. The only way the M2 Pro Mac mini makes any sense is if you don't max it out.

The main drawback with the M2 Pro Mac mini is the fact the only memory upgrade option available from its 16 GB base is straight to 32 GB. I'm sure a lot of people would like to have a 24 GB option on the M2 Pro, like Apple offers with the M2 Mac mini.

M2 Mac mini
24 GB RAM
512 GB storage
Thunderbolt 4 ports x 2, USB-A ports x 2 (Total 4 USB-C ports)
US$1199

M2 Pro Mac mini (10/16-core)
32 GB RAM
512 GB storage
Thunderbolt 4 ports x 4, USB-A x 2 (Total 6 USB-C ports)
US$1699

M2 Max Mac Studio (12/30-core)
32 GB RAM
512 GB storage
Thunderbolt 4 ports x 4, USB-C ports x 2, USB-A ports x 2 (Total 8 USB-C ports)
US$1999

We'll have to see how the pricing plays out with the M4 series, with 12 GB RAM base (my prediction), and four USB4/Thunderbolt controllers.

dr1337 · Monday at 8:14 PM

repoman27 said:
I also think a lot of people use dongles because they don't realize that Type-C ports are still USB ports, and Type-C to whatever cables are available.

Cost and availability are a thing too, having to go out and buy new cables and peripherals just to use a new computer is lame.

repoman27 said:
but you can also use an inexpensive USB Type-A hub instead of one or more dongles.

A hub is a dongle, just slightly more useful since it has more than one port on it and generally has a longer cable.

Lemme give you a personal example, me having to use a hub to increase the number of USB ports feels good, feels like I'm making my computer better. I've actually done this with a lenovo laptop to make it drive a Oculus Rift CV1 which literally needs 5 USB ports for good performance.

On the other hand my buddy who has a intel macbook pro touchbar, it doesn't feel cool that he has to use a hub or a dongle any time he or I want to plug a flash drive in, or charge a phone, or do anything that normal USB ports allow for.

Anyone remember this Apple ad?

To me its quite sad how far back apple has reverted in terms of PC formfactor. Reliance on hubs and dongles is much more like the right image and not the left one. At least having more controllers on die is a step in the right direction.

repoman27 · Monday at 10:13 PM

Thibsie said:
USB4 is TB3 AFAICT (mostly).

USB4 is based on Thunderbolt 3, however there are minor differences in signaling rate, encoding, and tunneling protocols. Thunderbolt interoperability is optional for USB4 devices. In other words, you can in fact make USB4 hosts / devices that will not work with Thunderbolt 3 hosts / devices. Thunderbolt 4 is USB4 with mandatory Thunderbolt 3 interoperability plus a few additional requirements arbitrarily imposed by Intel. The two 4K displays or one 8K display thing is an example of the latter, where neither the USB4 nor Thunderbolt 3 specifications make any such requirements.

Thibsie said:
Still, USB is plagued by deceiving 'standards'.
Remember USB3 high speed and USB3 ful speed ? Lol.

No.

The original version of USB offered two signaling modes, low-speed (1.5 Mbit/s) and full-speed (12 Mbit/s), and nobody ever had a problem with it. USB 2.0 introduced a new high-speed (480 Mbit/s) signaling mode, and nobody ever had a problem with it. USB 3.0 added an entirely new bus based on differential signaling called the SuperSpeed bus, which originally supported a signaling rate of 5 Gbit/s. Most people found the name SuperSpeed to be a tad ridiculous, but pretty much everyone had always ignored the names promoted by the USB-IF and instead used the specification version numbers anyway. The USB-IF pointed out that this was a terrible idea because device capabilities were not tied to that number, but because it had worked for so many years, nobody paid any mind. USB 3.1 and 3.2 broke the established system by introducing an optional higher signaling rate of 10 Gbit/s and channel bonding to achieve 20 Gbit/s link rates. This is when the internet lost its mind over the whole USB naming thing.

Nothing about the USB specifications themselves was ever deceptive. They're also all freely available online for anyone to read.

dr1337 said:
On the other hand my buddy who has a intel macbook pro touchbar, it doesn't feel cool that he has to use a hub or a dongle any time he or I want to plug a flash drive in, or charge a phone, or do anything that normal USB ports allow for.

Aside from this point, I was with you. Why on earth would you need a dongle to charge a phone from a USB Type-C port? And every USB thumb drive I've purchased since circa 2017 has been dual-interface Type-C/Type-A. It's not 2015 anymore; literally billions of Type-C devices have shipped at this point. I think it might be time to acknowledge that Type-C ports *are* normal USB ports.

repoman27 · Monday at 10:22 PM

Eug said:
Would you hazard to guess the I/O on an M4 (non-Pro) Mac mini from the die shot?

I will.

It'll probably look very similar to the current M2 Pro Mac mini. The only difference will be that the SSD interface will be limited to the equivalent of two PCIe Gen4 lanes and probably 2GB capacity due to the lower number of channels.

I don't see any reason why Apple would omit the USB Type-A ports, which have always been implemented via a discrete controller. Or why they wouldn't expose all four Thunderbolt 4 ports.

FlameTail · Monday at 10:32 PM

Apple M chips have integrated PCIe controllers for the SSDs, yes?

How does the number of PCIe lanes vary from the base to the Max?

dr1337 · Monday at 10:40 PM

repoman27 said:
Why on earth would you need a dongle to charge a phone from a USB Type-C port

Because all the probably dozens of usb c cables I have are type A to type C except for one really nice type C cable that I always leave at home. And I only even have it for the couple times I wanted to try display output. I had a USB-C android phone for a bit and it legit came with type A to type C only and I cant for the life of me see why it would be worth buying new cables instead of dongles or hubs.

repoman27 said:
I don't see any reason why Apple would omit the USB Type-A ports

I mean maybe not on the mac mini but type A has been long dead in laptops, and not a thing in the imac anymore. Also anyone trying to use a brand new ipad pro with peripherals implicitly has to use a dock or adapter of some kind to use more than one device, or use wall power. Its actually kinda crazy to me thinking now that the M4 with all of the connectivity it has gets put into an ipad with a single USB-C port.

Doug S · Monday at 10:40 PM

dr1337 said:
To me its quite sad how far back apple has reverted in terms of PC formfactor. Reliance on hubs and dongles is much more like the right image and not the left one. At least having more controllers on die is a step in the right direction.

Any reliance on "dongles" is theoretical based on people's guesses that Apple will be dropping USB-A ports. And to the extent that requires dongles, that's the fault of the PC world, where PC OEMs dole out USB-C ports sparingly except on high end stuff, as if they're made of gold or something. And a result accessory makers for the kind of common gear people plug into PCs like USB sticks, keyboards and mice are still overwhelmingly USB-A only. It is well past time to move to USB-C, and if Apple dropping USB-A ports hastens that day more power to them!

dr1337 · Monday at 10:45 PM

Doug S said:
is theoretical based on people's guesses that Apple will be dropping USB-A ports.

Oh no I am quite literally speaking from experience, there might be 2 products left with USB-A, but that doesn't change that fact that apple has cut back on type A ports significantly in the past decade.

Lol maybe the only reason they havent removed them from the mini and studio yet is because they don't want to make all you guys angry. But from all the apple products I've experienced as of late, USB-A is not to be seen.

Eug · Monday at 11:01 PM

repoman27 said:
It'll probably look very similar to the current M2 Pro Mac mini. The only difference will be that the SSD interface will be limited to the equivalent of two PCIe Gen4 lanes and probably 2GB capacity due to the lower number of channels.

I don't see any reason why Apple would omit the USB Type-A ports, which have always been implemented via a discrete controller. Or why they wouldn't expose all four Thunderbolt 4 ports.

I hope you are correct, but I fear that you are not. I fully expect Apple to drop USB-A completely at some point, but the inclusion of four USB4/TB controllers in M4 makes me think it will be sooner rather than later, as in with the M4 Mac mini.

Remember, as of next year, when I expect the M4 Mac mini will be released, USB-A will be 29 years old.

repoman27 · Monday at 11:15 PM

FlameTail said:
Apple M chips have integrated PCIe controllers for the SSDs, yes?

How does the number of PCIe lanes vary from the base to the Max?

The M-series chips have integrated SSD controllers that use PCIe lanes for transport between the SoC and the NAND packages. Each package supports two NAND channels and is connected to the host by a single PCIe Gen4 lane.

The M1/2/3/4 have 2 PCIe lanes dedicated to SSD functions and support up to 4 NAND channels.

The M3 Pro has 4 PCIe lanes dedicated to SSD functions and supports up to 8 NAND channels.

The M1/2 Pro/Max/Ultra and M3 Max SoCs have 8 PCIe lanes dedicated to SSD functions and support up to 16 NAND channels.

The M1/4 have 5 PCIe Gen4 lanes total.

The M2/3 have 6 PCIe Gen4 lanes total.

The M3 Pro has 8 PCIe Gen4 lanes total.

The M1 Pro/Max have 12 PCIe Gen4 lanes total.

The M2 Pro/Max and M3 Max have 16 PCIe Gen4 lanes total.

The M1 Ultra has 24 PCIe Gen4 lanes total.

The M2 Ultra has 32 PCIe Gen4 lanes total.

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