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Counterpoint today published the first part of a series of articles and reviews of Apple’s new M1 processor. The report was written by Brady Wang, who has more than 20 years of working experience in high-tech companies, from semiconductor manufacturing to market intelligence and strategic advice. Brady’s primary coverage at Counterpoint is semiconductors.
“On November 10, Apple introduced three new Mac devices – MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac Mini – powered by the Apple M1 system on a chip (SoC). While the inability of Intel chips to meet the requirements Emerging was the apparent trigger for Apple to have its own chips, although there were many other benefits and possibilities that were driving the move.
Like iOS and Android, Apple’s macOS has a different ecosystem than Windows. Although macOS has continued to improve its user interface, Apple’s service revenue from the PC segment cannot be compared to that of the iPhone. The slow improvement in PC hardware, which is dominated by Intel, is one of the key factors affecting the progress of macOS. The gap between the two operating systems is also narrowing as Windows is catching up. On the other hand, thanks to healthy competition between the two main smartphone operating systems, smartphones have improved the system architecture, such as memory management, power management, artificial intelligence functions, and interface. of user. They have integrated new chips, such as UWB, GPS and LIDAR, to meet the demand for AI and IoT. The operating system is undoubtedly the critical determinant of system performance. However, the most important thing is still the brain: the microprocessor.
Intel dominated the entire PC architecture for several decades. Many peripheral connections (such as wired and wireless connectivity), memory configurations, and integrated GPU and AI chips remained restricted by Intel architecture. As a result, ODM / OEM PCs and NBs saw limited innovation. They just (or could only) follow Intel’s roadmap for x86 architecture advancements. x86 has not been able to create many innovative applications to meet the emerging requirement for AI and IoT.
To overcome this, Apple announced at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) that its entire Mac product line would switch from Intel chips to Apple Silicon in two years and officially released the Apple M1 on November 10.
The specifications of the M1 are similar to those of the A14 Bionic. However, the M1 on a Mac device can offer more computing power and applications than the A14 Bionic on an iPhone. Both are manufactured at 5nm from TSMC and feature custom high performance (Firestorm), power savings (Icestorm), GPU and NPU. However, the M1 has two more high-performance cores than the A14 Bionic, as well as additional cache and peripheral circuitry.
The purpose of the first generation Apple Silicon, M1, is to create a new experience. Its aim is to achieve the balance between performance and power consumption, rather than high computing. According to Apple, the M1 has 16 billion transistors, roughly 35% more than the A14 Bionic. Counterpoint estimates the size of the M1 die to be about 140-150mm2, much larger than that of the A14 Bionic.
(Click on the image to enlarge)
Depending on the application environment, power consumption, thermal efficiency, and footprint are essential considerations in SoC design. Thanks to the advantages of the advanced process at TSMC in terms of power consumption and transistor density, the M1 performs better on Mac devices than on previous Intel-based MacBooks. Unlike Intel CPUs that emphasize a maximum clock rate, the Apple M1 clock rate is dynamic. The M1 uses energy-efficient cores to achieve lower system power consumption and multitasking workload. However, in addition to the limitations inherited from the Apple AX SOC, the maximum clock frequency of the M1 cannot increase to 4.8GHz like Intel’s latest Tiger Lake CPU (10nm), which is most likely due to process limitations. TSMC.
It’s worth mentioning that the M1 incorporates DRAM alongside the SoC to form a unified memory architecture (UMA) to accelerate data access over high-speed interconnects. Unlike the A14 Bionic, the DRAM sits alongside the SOC rather than stacked. This idea has been mentioned in many documents, but its use on a PC is pioneering. As Michael Dell once said, “Ideas are commodities, execution is not.” Apple has succeeded in demonstrating the benefits of UMA through actual product design and validation.
(Click on the image to enlarge)
The advantages of this packaging method are shown below:
- The DRAM built into the M1 can reduce the footprint of memory modules, leaving room for batteries or other peripheral circuitry.
- The signal transmission speed between the SOC and the DRAM in the same package is much faster than in the design where the chip is separated in different positions on the PCB. Of course, it becomes more difficult to manufacture such chips. But TSMC’s advanced packaging technology enables such a design.
- Unlike the legacy architecture in traditional PCs, the M1 incorporates high-bandwidth, low-latency memory DRAM into a single pool within a custom package. Therefore, all the cores can retrieve data in memory simultaneously and the system can dynamically organize the valuable memory resource. This dramatically improves system performance and reduces the use of power-hungry DRAMs, prolonging battery life.
As we mentioned in a report published in June, the benefits of migrating to the new architecture (Apple Silicon) include:
- Reduce dependency on a single provider
- Differentiate products from the competition
- Get control of the ecosystem
- Develop applications for both mobile devices and computers using the same APIs and programming tools.
- Reduce cost
Using the M1 on Mac devices demonstrates these benefits. In terms of cost reduction, the production cost of the M1 is less than the purchase cost of the Intel CPU. Therefore, the total price of the system will be lower than before.
Other possibilities with Apple Silicon include:
- Multi-core: The next generation of Apple chips will have more high-performance cores to meet the requirements of high-performance, multitasking PC applications. However, this will inevitably be accompanied by an equivalent increase in built-in SRAM density, leading to a significant cost increase. So, if the technology migration slows down, Apple Silicon’s dual coexistence may be a potential solution.
- Powerful NPU: NPU enables Mac devices to enhance AI inferring capabilities in image and voice, such as virtual assistant integration (macOS Siri) to enhance Mac strengths in the office, reduce bandwidth required for remote video conferencing, and provide translation snapshot on edge. .
- Integrated discrete GPU chips: Thanks to its high-performance GPU core powered by TSMC 5nm, the M1 is more powerful than standalone mid-range GPU graphics cards. However, it is still insufficient for content creators. Therefore, Counterpoint believes that Apple Silicon will integrate AP and GPU on a single chip using an advanced package. “
Stay tuned for part 2 in the next few days.
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