Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#301

Post by Kubuxu » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 7:37 PM UTC

jononor wrote: post #108

masklinn wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. There are only three extant architectural license holders (Intel, AMD and VIA) and they're basically in a circular firing squad of patents. To make their own chips, they'd need to either license from an existing holder (which wouldn't let them tinker unless it was a partnership or they acquired the license) or they'd need to make something so incredibly great the other three would trip over themselves to use it…

If they wanted to go x86 they would just buy VIA? I think it will be aarch64

Replying to sibling comments.

They can't buy AMD (nobody can) for patents as licences on parts of x64 AMD doesn't own will be voided if AMD is ever acquired.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#302

Post by diogenescynic » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 7:38 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #253

egypturnash wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has done this twice already. 680x0 to PowerPC, then PowerPC to Intel. Adobe's come along on both of these.

Those changes were all to more powerful processors such that emulating the old architecture wouldn't be that bad. In this instance, Apple would likely be going to a less powerful processors and thus emulation at any reasonable level of performance wouldn't be that viable.

After the Meltdown patch and Intel's exposed security flaws, Apple might still be better off with less powerful processors.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#303

Post by pm90 » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 7:38 PM UTC

ggg9990 wrote: post #259

Intel’s R&D budget is $13 billion and Apple’s operating income is $61 billion, so Apple has more than enough money to play this game. I do wonder why it makes sense for them, other than a possible unification from top to bottom of the desktop and mobile computing paradigms, with everything from the Apple Watch to the Mac Pro running the same instruction set.

I think scaring Intel enough to be better about its software and security practices is a big enough effect that would be beneficial for everyone. Not that I'm a big fan of close-source-everything Apple. But Intel's Software is just a horrible mess (note that I'm talking specifically about software: they seem to contract out software development to other firms and the code quality seems to be objectively bad as a result)

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#304

Post by 0x0 » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 7:39 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #283

huebnerob wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your last point may be a bit of an understatement. It's going to absolutely annihilate x86 virtualization on the Mac. Like, I don't think parallels or VMware will even attempt to write an x86 emulator for ARM, they'll just pack up and leave. But the Mac thrived for a very long time without x86 compatibility, and it can do the same again, virtualization was always kind of a happy accident for us anyway.

Parallels and VMWare will just abandon their primary market? No they won't.

Maybe not Parallels, but VMWare Fusion always seemed like a skunkworks side-project that almost got killed off at least once. Their cash cow is enterprise hypervisors, not $60 consumer windows emulation, unfortunately. (Fusion has been serving me very well for windows and .NET development purposes so far)

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#305

Post by mozumder » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 7:39 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #253

egypturnash wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has done this twice already. 680x0 to PowerPC, then PowerPC to Intel. Adobe's come along on both of these.

Those changes were all to more powerful processors such that emulating the old architecture wouldn't be that bad. In this instance, Apple would likely be going to a less powerful processors and thus emulation at any reasonable level of performance wouldn't be that viable.

When Apple switches, their processors are likely going to be 2x faster than Intels. It will be a huge jump.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#306

Post by throwaway84742 » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 7:39 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #143

throwaway84742 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s doable for them. For one thing, even their iPhone chips are currently nipping at the heels of Intel’s low-tdp mobile CPUs, exceeding some ULV parts in performance. For another, they could just push all the difficult stuff into specialized coprocessors. Wrap that into system frameworks and nobody will ever know.

I think they'll get between 5 and 10 percent of Intel by then, but that still means that an x86 emulator is punching light, even before you get into emulation overhead. By comparison, the 68k emulator on PPC wasn't even a JIT. It just interpreted 68k machine code, and even then it was still 2x faster than a native 68k. Moore's law really helped them.with their previous transitions, but Moore ain't cashing checks like…

I’m pretty sure Rosetta wasn’t an interpreter, and Intel chips were less than 2x the speed of PowerPC.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software)

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#307

Post by CharlesW » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #253

egypturnash wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has done this twice already. 680x0 to PowerPC, then PowerPC to Intel. Adobe's come along on both of these.

Those changes were all to more powerful processors such that emulating the old architecture wouldn't be that bad. In this instance, Apple would likely be going to a less powerful processors and thus emulation at any reasonable level of performance wouldn't be that viable.

> In this instance, Apple would likely be going to a less powerful processors…

Arguably, the A11 Bionic is already faster than mainstream desktop CPUs.

"The iPhone 8 even edged out the score from the 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro with a 7th-generation Core i5 processor. That notebook notched 9,213. Is Geekbench 4 really comparable from phone to desktop? According to the founder of Geekbench, John Poole, 'the short is answer is yes that the scores are comparable across platforms, so if an iPhone 8 scores higher than an i5, then the iPhone 8 is faster than the i5.'"[1]

[1] https://www.tomsguide.com/us/iphone-8-benchmarks-fastest-pho...

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#308

Post by ken » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

israrkhan wrote: post #81

Apple has been preparing itself for independence from underlying CPU arachitecture for a while. In WWDC 2015[1], they announced bitcode. All App submissions to AppStore are compiled to to bitcode. This allows Apple to re-optimize/re-compile your app binary in the future for newer hardware without the need to submit new version of your app to the store. This allows Apple to switch to intel chip on iPhone, or switch to…

> This allows Apple to switch to intel chip on iPhone, or switch to an ARM chip on MacOS.

Not easily. It's optional on iOS [1], and doesn't support completely new (non-ARM) CPU architectures. On macOS, the feature doesn't exist at all.

[1]: https://help.apple.com/xcode/mac/current/#/devbbdc5ce4f

In theory an LLVM-based bitcode-like system could allow Apple to change CPUs and automatically recompile App Store binaries without developer intervention, but their current bitcode system does not support that.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#309

Post by TheCoreh » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

iliaznk wrote: post #85

Is Apple competent enough to build an equally powerful CPU? Or is it a no-brainer for the kind of money they got?

They are absurdly competent with CPU design. The A series chips are already matching or even surpassing the performance of lower tier Intel chips. Keep in mind these chips were first introduced IIRC in 2011 with the iPhone 4S, are designed to be passively cooled (no fans) and are limited by the battery constraints of iPhones and iPads. They could conceivably 'scale them up' for laptops and desktops and get a significant performance boost.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#310

Post by uptown » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #280

uptown wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What are iOS developers supposed to develop on?" Presumably laptops and desktops with Apple chips inside.

According to the article, those would still be using Intel chips.

"According to the article, those would still be using Intel chips."

Where do you see that?