Observing the A11's Heterogenous Cores • Hacker News Board

Re: Observing the A11's Heterogenous Cores

#11

Post by jws » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 5:25 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #7

ksk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is the author seriously so deep in the "Apple-is-the-world" bubble that he has not yet heard of BigLittle? Why the rude comment?

In this case it's probably genuine surprise. The ARM big.LITTLE trick (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_big.LITTLE ) been workable and shipping on real devices for half a decade now[1]. This is not particularly innovative ground, and to write a whole blog post without even mentioning the fact or doing a comparison with any of the existing devices implies that maybe the author didn't do enough research. Whether t…

The article clearly begins that this is the first arrival for iOS and this is an exploration of the feature in iOS.

Re: Observing the A11's Heterogenous Cores

#12

Post by zeusk » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 5:39 PM UTC

haikuginger wrote: post #4

bipson wrote: post #2

Is the author seriously so deep in the "Apple-is-the-world" bubble that he has not yet heard of BigLittle? In what way is the A11 different?

I'm not familiar with the current state of bigLITTLE, but at least initially, bigLITTLE clusters weren't capable of heterogeneous compute; you could shift between cache-coherent clusters (use either all four big cores or all four LITTLE cores) or have virtual cores, each made up of one big and one LITTLE core, with the kernel managing which physical core was actually executing threads assigned to the logical core. My…

heterogeneous big.LITTLE implementations are in consumer android devices since late 2013s.

Re: Observing the A11's Heterogenous Cores

#13

Post by oflannabhra » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 5:42 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #9

[deleted]

I didn't see the author present any technology as being novel industry-wide.

He did present big.LITTLE architecture as novel to the Apple and iOS ecosystems, which is correct.

Re: Observing the A11's Heterogenous Cores

#14

Post by pmattos » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 5:43 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #9

[deleted]

In no way the author — a vey respected engineer in the Apple community BTW — pretended to provide an exhaustive overview of the multi-core heterogeneous computing world (or assert that Apple invented all this tech on its own).

I honestly think that he just wanted to provide a very brief comparison between A10 and the latest A11, and then go on with his article core subject ;)

Re: Observing the A11's Heterogenous Cores

#15

Post by Moto7451 » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 5:53 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #9

[deleted]

Unless he edited the post after you commented, I don’t quite agree with the comparison. He states “in the Apple world” as a qualifier to his history lesson. He doesn’t say “Apple invented multi core CPUs” or “Apple had multi core CPUs first”.

Re: Observing the A11's Heterogenous Cores

#16

Post by cooper12 » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 6:49 PM UTC

ksk wrote: post #5

bipson wrote: post #2

Is the author seriously so deep in the "Apple-is-the-world" bubble that he has not yet heard of BigLittle? In what way is the A11 different?

>Is the author seriously so deep in the "Apple-is-the-world" bubble that he has not yet heard of BigLittle? Why the rude comment?

It's Apple. Gotta put those iSheep in their place, know what I mean?

Re: Observing the A11's Heterogenous Cores

#17

Post by pohl » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 7:05 PM UTC

bipson wrote: post #2

Is the author seriously so deep in the "Apple-is-the-world" bubble that he has not yet heard of BigLittle? In what way is the A11 different?

I couldn't find any quote in the article that supports the suggestion that the author isn't/wasn't unaware of big.LITTLE.

Could you cite one that supports your snark?

Re: Observing the A11's Heterogenous Cores

#18

Post by mikeash » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 7:09 PM UTC

bipson wrote: post #2

Is the author seriously so deep in the "Apple-is-the-world" bubble that he has not yet heard of BigLittle? In what way is the A11 different?

It's an Apple-focused blog. The A11 may not be doing anything new when considering the wider world, but it's the first Apple CPU to have it.

Do not confuse "I did not mention this other thing that is not entirely off topic" with "I was not aware of this other thing."

Re: Observing the A11's Heterogenous Cores

#19

Post by mikeash » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 7:10 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #7

ksk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is the author seriously so deep in the "Apple-is-the-world" bubble that he has not yet heard of BigLittle? Why the rude comment?

In this case it's probably genuine surprise. The ARM big.LITTLE trick (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_big.LITTLE ) been workable and shipping on real devices for half a decade now[1]. This is not particularly innovative ground, and to write a whole blog post without even mentioning the fact or doing a comparison with any of the existing devices implies that maybe the author didn't do enough research. Whether t…

It's an Apple-focused blog. If you want someone to write up a comparison with existing non-Apple CPUs then maybe you should write it.

Re: Observing the A11's Heterogenous Cores

#20

Post by mikeash » Fri, Nov 10, 2017, 7:12 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #9

[deleted]

> But he described the Apple ecosystem as if nothing outside it even exists.

I did no such thing. I focused on Apple because my blog focuses on Apple, but at no point did I state or imply that nothing outside of Apple exists. I even went out of my way to say that multicore systems have "become the norm in many parts of the computing world."