Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

[Eug]

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:

Page 78 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 78 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

M1 Ultra discussion here:

Page 109 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 109 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

M2 discussion here:

Page 127 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 127 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

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:

Page 215 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 215 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

M4 Family discussion here:

Page 263 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 263 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

 

[mvprod123]

No, they released a product containing C1 without mmwave support. Not the same thing. That's my point. I agree KISS suggests C1 doesn't have it, and maybe it doesn't. Not sure how much additional area that requires, if it isn't that much it seems silly not to include it even if the only products containing it will ship without mmwave, because that would allow them to do some real world testing now - and have time to fix C2 if they identify any hardware issues.

Implementing mmWave takes a lot of time. Given the previous rumours of difficulties and failures in the development of C1, the significant reorganisation of Intel's acquired modem team, and the hiring of former Qualcomm engineers, it is already clear that the lack of mmWave support makes sense. Logically, the reorganised team has focused on the essentials.

 

[okoroezenwa]

The MacBook Pro has equal if not higher sales overall

Really? Has Apple said anything of the sort? As far as I’m aware they’ve maintained that the MBA was their best seller.

 

[moinmoin]

Really? Has Apple said anything of the sort? As far as I’m aware they’ve maintained that the MBA was their best seller.

Likely a split of MBA being best at selling units and MBP by revenue or some such.

 

[okoroezenwa]

Likely a split of MBA being best at selling units and MBP by revenue or some such.

Makes sense

 

[Eug]

Apple has sometimes said the highest volume sales are the MacBook Air. However, third party sales estimates by market research companies state that sometimes MBP unit sales outpace MBA sales.

What this suggests to me is that probably while unit sales of MBA are indeed higher overall, unit sales of MBP are likely close, but MBP revenue is likely sonetimes more than MBA revenue.

BTW, the share of laptops vs. overall Mac sales has been reported to be around 75-90% in recent times.

 

[Eug]

iPhone 16e benches:

Binned GPU is about 15% slower. CPU single-core is also slow, but I’m not sure why. It might be a testing anomaly though since multi-core is in the right ballpark.

CPU:

iPhone17,5 - Geekbench

Benchmark results for an iPhone17,5 with an ARM processor.

browser.geekbench.com

GPU:

iPhone17,5 - Geekbench

Benchmark results for an iPhone17,5 with an ARM processor.

browser.geekbench.com

 

[SteinFG]

the CPU in 16e is about 8-10% slower clock for clock. data from this geekbench test. Probably sub-par cooling and sub-par chip.

 

[mvprod123]

iPhone 16e benches:

Binned GPU is about 15% slower. CPU single-core is also slow, but I’m not sure why. It might be a testing anomaly though since multi-core is in the right ballpark.

CPU:

iPhone17,5 - Geekbench

Benchmark results for an iPhone17,5 with an ARM processor.

browser.geekbench.com

GPU:

iPhone17,5 - Geekbench

Benchmark results for an iPhone17,5 with an ARM processor.

browser.geekbench.com

https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/10656990

 

[Eug]

https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/10656990

View attachment 117777

That's more like it. So, the earlier slow CPU single-core score was just a testing anomaly, as suspected.

 

[Nothingness]

That's more like it. So, the earlier slow CPU single-core score was just a testing anomaly, as suspected.

The one @mvprod123 posted has a stable frequency of ~4.03 GHz. I guess the former one was busy doing things in background (updates?).

 

[moinmoin]

Thick on storytelling and thin on actual details, but this German article claims Munich (location of the R&D group originally part of Infineon, then Intel which sold it to Apple) still plays a big role in the development of these new modem chips.

Chip Challenges: The Munich Contribution to Apple's New iPhone 16

With the iPhone 16e, Apple has launched a new middle-class device. The 5G chip it uses was largely developed in Munich. DER SPIEGEL spoke with those behind the novelty.

www.spiegel.de

 

[Eug]

I find this pic of the C1 modem testing lab system a little ironic.

 

[poke01]

Some info on the modem

 

[igor_kavinski]

Thank you, Apple, for Ryzen AI Max: http://www.portvapes.co.uk/?id=Latest-exam-1Z0-876-Dumps&exid=threads/amd-soc-halo-series-gpu-discussion.2624449/post-41401006

No, seriously. THANK YOU!

And carry on.

 

[GC2:CS]

View attachment 117821

Some info on the modem

I am sorry, would anyone mind to compile that post to english ? Looks like assembler to me.

 

[name99]

I am sorry, would anyone mind to compile that post to english ? Looks like assembler to me.

Any moderately sophisticated subsystem (like modem or wifi) has to run an OS to handle the low-level details like power on, sleep/wakeup, switching to different code to perform different tasks, handle asynchronous interruptions, etc.
So what OS did Apple use for C1?

You want a tiny OS (you only need limited functionality, and anything more than limited functionality provides a new attack surface, even apart from taking up RAM and storage). Commercial options are things like QNX, but Qualcomm uses their own RTOS (real time OS, the real time essentially meaning guarantees that certain types of operations will always complete in a certain time, regardless of whatever else is happening) called QuRT.

Apple has two (known) kinda-sorta RTOSs.
One is cL4 which is an Apple modified version on L4, which is a very small OS optimized for security. cL4 runs on Apple's Secure Enclave.
The other is RTKit which runs on a variety of Apple products, things like Airpods, Airtags, Apple Pencil, and on the controller CPU (the Chinook or Marin CPU) that manages eg ANE or the Flash controller. Basically if it's something Apple ships, and it needs a tiny OS, but it makes no sense to use something Darwin-sized, then it runs RTKit.

So which of these two did Apple choose? Both!
Apparently something like running cL4 as the "outer" OS (or hypervisor) and RTKit as a task within CL4. Presumably this means something like
- the outside world can only communicate with the modem by following cL4 rules and protocols, very structured access, very difficult (hopefully impossible...) to get anything in or out that's not planned
- but Apple has lots of hardware (and presumably many tools and so on) built on RTKit, so they set up RTKit to run within cL4 so they can reuse all that infrastructure to control the modem

 

[name99]

Any moderately sophisticated subsystem (like modem or wifi) has to run an OS to handle the low-level details like power on, sleep/wakeup, switching to different code to perform different tasks, handle asynchronous interruptions, etc.
So what OS did Apple use for C1?

You want a tiny OS (you only need limited functionality, and anything more than limited functionality provides a new attack surface, even apart from taking up RAM and storage). Commercial options are things like QNX, but Qualcomm uses their own RTOS (real time OS, the real time essentially meaning guarantees that certain types of operations will always complete in a certain time, regardless of whatever else is happening) called QuRT.

Apple has two (known) kinda-sorta RTOSs.
One is cL4 which is an Apple modified version on L4, which is a very small OS optimized for security. cL4 runs on Apple's Secure Enclave.
The other is RTKit which runs on a variety of Apple products, things like Airpods, Airtags, Apple Pencil, and on the controller CPU (the Chinook or Marin CPU) that manages eg ANE or the Flash controller. Basically if it's something Apple ships, and it needs a tiny OS, but it makes no sense to use something Darwin-sized, then it runs RTKit.

So which of these two did Apple choose? Both!
Apparently something like running cL4 as the "outer" OS (or hypervisor) and RTKit as a task within CL4. Presumably this means something like
- the outside world can only communicate with the modem by following cL4 rules and protocols, very structured access, very difficult (hopefully impossible...) to get anything in or out that's not planned
- but Apple has lots of hardware (and presumably many tools and so on) built on RTKit, so they set up RTKit to run within cL4 so they can reuse all that infrastructure to control the modem

BTW, people may not know this, but Google's Project Zero has multiple examples of cracking into modem or wifi "control systems" (vague term because different companies do this sort of thing in different ways).

Over The Air: Exploiting Broadcom’s Wi-Fi Stack (Part 1)

Posted by Gal Beniamini, Project Zero It’s a well understood fact that platform security is an integral part of the security of comple...

googleprojectzero.blogspot.com

Multiple Internet to Baseband Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities in Exynos Modems

Posted by Tim Willis, Project Zero In late 2022 and early 2023, Project Zero reported eighteen 0-day vulnerabilities in Exynos Modems...

googleprojectzero.blogspot.com

It's not at all paranoid for Apple to worry about this and to try to get it right from the very start, rather than shipping with a quick easy solution then trying to patch the holes as they are discovered (which seems to be how some other people do it!)

 

[Mopetar]

It can't be THAT big a hit or Intel and AMD wouldn't be plunging into chiplets with both feet.

Apple's SoCs are small enough where adding the cellular modem isn't going to ruin the economics of their chips. Apple also technically uses chiplets aready because the M-series Ultra chips are just multiple dies stitched together as opposed a monolithic chip.

The only company making massive monolithic silicon is Nvidia because they can sell one chip for as much (or more) than the entire wafer costs. Apple won't just make a single integrated part though, because not all of their products need it. I think they will produce an SoC with the cellular modem integrated though because there's significant advantages to doing so.

Apple is the type of company that if they could find a way to put everything onto a single chip would absolutely do so. If you cracked open their phone it would be an SoC connected to the display, camera, and USB-C port and a giant battery. Jobs and Ives may be gone, but their strive for simplicity still lives on at Apple.

 

[Doug S]

BTW, people may not know this, but Google's Project Zero has multiple examples of cracking into modem or wifi "control systems" (vague term because different companies do this sort of thing in different ways).

Yes modem baseband software is a terrible ugly black box vulnerability for everyone except Samsung, Mediatek, Huawei and now Apple who control their own instead of running a third party vendor's stuff. I've heard anecdotally from those in a position to know that Qualcomm's baseband is a horror show of poor security practices, and the only reason attacks on it are mostly limited to nation states is because of "security through obscurity".

It's not at all paranoid for Apple to worry about this and to try to get it right from the very start, rather than shipping with a quick easy solution then trying to patch the holes as they are discovered (which seems to be how some other people do it!)

I'm very happy to learn Apple is running this on L4, since they're already using it for their highest security stuff. Now it is perhaps too much to hope for, but it sure would be nice to hear that it is written in Swift rather than C.

 

[Doug S]

Apple's SoCs are small enough where adding the cellular modem isn't going to ruin the economics of their chips. Apple also technically uses chiplets aready because the M-series Ultra chips are just multiple dies stitched together as opposed a monolithic chip.

The only company making massive monolithic silicon is Nvidia because they can sell one chip for as much (or more) than the entire wafer costs. Apple won't just make a single integrated part though, because not all of their products need it. I think they will produce an SoC with the cellular modem integrated though because there's significant advantages to doing so.

Apple is the type of company that if they could find a way to put everything onto a single chip would absolutely do so. If you cracked open their phone it would be an SoC connected to the display, camera, and USB-C port and a giant battery. Jobs and Ives may be gone, but their strive for simplicity still lives on at Apple.

Yes but Apple's SoCs only include things that can be economically justified. That is, they don't build M4 Pro chips and disable parts of the chip to operate it as an M4. Why? Because that would waste a lot of silicon. The non-analog portion of the modem may not occupy as much area as the difference between M4 and M4P but its enough that it doesn't make sense to add it for the low single digit potential market for cellular on a Mac. It's gonna remain a separate chip. Now if you could get me to believe that 50% of Mac buyers will want built in cellular you could make a case for building it in, but that's just not reality. People will use hotspots, and if they really want cellular you can buy a little USB stick barely the size of your thumbnail.

One may wish they could build an "everything" SoC but you can't mix digital and analog on leading edge processes, so there will always be separate chips for the analog world of PHYs and ADCs.

 

[SpudLobby]

I'm not interested in the frequencies, I'm interested in the baseband.

I would assume that the modulation details, FEC details, signaling details etc of Globalstar are different because of course they are, that's the way these things always work when different technologies are rolled out at different times expecting very different use cases.

Which in turn means a whole additional set of baseband work in addition to the cellular work. (And the GPS work.)

And I'm not as certain as you are that people don't want cellular in their PCs. Why has the MBA M4 been delayed so long? To me the best explanation is that it has been waiting on the C1.

lmao, the MBA is just on a different schedule, they're not that consistent these days. Probably the iPad got the earliest batch of M4 chips for a reason volume wise. This is one of Maynard's wild dreams RE: C1.

Will they eventually add modems to Macs? Of course, or at least probably. If they pull off a Wifi-Bluetooth-modem in one chip, they might be able to cost justify just straight up shipping that standard or in most units, who knows.

The real problem is that in the US (and I expect elsewhere) every carrier is being a total twat about connecting multiple devices to a single account at a reasonable cost. That's what's hindering all this stuff. But at SOME POINT not just Apple but Google and all of tech are going to demand, one way or another, that this be done better, because it opens up so much future activity - people are going to want their car to have an eSIM, and their robot, and their house for backup internet, and and and. And if VZW and ATT won't do this in a reasonable fashion, maybe the FCC can persuade them?
Or maybe Google or Apple points out they can partner with ONE of them to get this done right, and generate a Cingular situation all over again ... with all that implied for the non-Cingular carriers... or they can all just stop being idiots.

As for why? The same reason that when you're at a hotel you use your cell phone. In theory, yes, WiFi is available at many of the places you use your laptop. In PRACTICE most of those places do the job so badly that a reasonable person just switches to hotspot right away. And sure, hotspot works. But it's a waste of power. Why not just provide for multiple eSIMs all linked to the same account, sharing the same pool of data?

 

[SpudLobby]

Yes but Apple's SoCs only include things that can be economically justified. That is, they don't build M4 Pro chips and disable parts of the chip to operate it as an M4. Why? Because that would waste a lot of silicon. The non-analog portion of the modem may not occupy as much area as the difference between M4 and M4P but its enough that it doesn't make sense to add it for the low single digit potential market for cellular on a Mac. It's gonna remain a separate chip. Now if you could get me to believe that 50% of Mac buyers will want built in cellular you could make a case for building it in, but that's just not reality. People will use hotspots, and if they really want cellular you can buy a little USB stick barely the size of your thumbnail.

One may wish they could build an "everything" SoC but you can't mix digital and analog on leading edge processes, so there will always be separate chips for the analog world of PHYs and ADCs.

Well apparently they want to do an all-in-one Wifi/BT/Cellular chip long term but presumably in this case they'll still have a Wifi-BT standalone one for Macs and iPads unless the cost is just so low that it makes more sense to standardize at that point, but my suspicion is the RFE elements would make this a no go cost wise especially given most Mac users won't really care that much.

 

[mvprod123]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1872735166864801816

 

[mvprod123]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1858593270798184541

 

[okoroezenwa]

We’re finally getting die shots?