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Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

macworld.com

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Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#141

Post by rogerbinns »

jandrese wrote: post #17

I wish Apple would make a sort of Raspberry Pi like board with an A series chip, ethernet, HDMI, GPIO, SD Card, etc... for $50-$100 that runs Linux. I would also like a flying unicorn. Seriously, a high power SBC at a reasonable price point would be insanely useful for projects like portable MAME cabinets, video transcoders, scene displays, etc... I love the Pi but it's so old tech, especially the video cores, that i…

> Raspberry Pi like board with an A series chip, ethernet, HDMI, GPIO, SD Card, etc... for $50-$100 that runs Linux.

The upboard fits that description perfectly - http://www.up-board.org/up/

The CPU is an Intel Atom which turns out to perform very well. The internal storage is blazingly fast eMMC. It has an Intel GPU which means complete open source driver support. (I can't comment on the GPU performance as I use the serial console.)

They also put a 40 pin connector on it that is hardware compatible with the raspberry pi - ie the same pins, voltages, and functions. You do need kernel patches for full support of the pins because the pins are specced at 3.3V while the Atom is 1.8V. There is level shifter hardware that fixes that, which the patches control. The patches are public from Emutex (in github) and there is also a PPA if you just want to play with Ubuntu and not worry about it.

It uses an AMI UEFI BIOS. You can compile the kernel with efi stub support and the upboard can boot straight into your code.

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#142

Post by wuunderbar »

Finch2192 wrote: post #107

Can someone explain to me why this matters? It feels like CPU advancements in recent memory have brought nothing at all. It used to be, in the early days of smartphones, every generation brought something very new, something that can truly be considered an improvement. I remember the first dual core phone, the first quad core, etc. Nowadays, there is no noticeable difference at all. Even now, where phones have indeed…

Apple would be in a good position to create a dockable phone, however the x86 & ARM gap needs to be bridged in order for this to happen.

Perhaps that is their long game:

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/266773-apple-may-dump-...

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#143

Post by wmf »

jcfrei wrote: post #128

In previous discussions about sub 10nm chips I kept reading that the only company which is close to achieving this feature size is Intel - and for all other companies it's just a marketing term. Does this still hold?

No. Intel is still on 14 nm [1] while TSMC/Samsung/GloFo "7 nm" should be roughly equivalent to Intel 10 nm.

[1] Don't believe the hype.

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#144

Post by duxup »

gondo wrote: post #96
jey wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. All I really want is more RAM so that I can tab between Safari and Facebook without one of them getting unloaded and losing my place.

as soon as one of those app gets access to more ram, it will use all of it, and you will have the same experience just look at desktop

We will have at least a good month of multitasking bliss ;)

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#146

Post by on_and_off »

Finch2192 wrote: post #107

Can someone explain to me why this matters? It feels like CPU advancements in recent memory have brought nothing at all. It used to be, in the early days of smartphones, every generation brought something very new, something that can truly be considered an improvement. I remember the first dual core phone, the first quad core, etc. Nowadays, there is no noticeable difference at all. Even now, where phones have indeed…

TLDR : it does not really matter that much.

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#147

Post by monocasa »

my123 wrote: post #136
monocasa wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in multitasking UX. Yes, technically there isn't anything stopping you from running a compiler on iOS, but there's so much more to having a relevant development platform than "does llvm technically run".

iOS development builds actually have the compiler installed by default. It can also be installed on jailbroken devices via Cydia too.

Sure, but my point is that's easy. The hard part is converting iOS to a point where you can get real multitasking work done. Even just switching back and forth between an IDE and a web browser is super painful compared to a desktop/laptop.

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#148

Post by on_and_off »

ratsimihah wrote: post #65

Have chips ever been critical features? I mean the ones that add features like NFC ok, but doesn't every chip make phones "faster"?

It used to be, now most phones (except for some bad ones, mainly on the low cost portion) have mostly satisfying performances.

Sure, all of them drop a frame or two here and there and that's very annoying when you work on graphics, but nothing essential.

IF we could push the SOCs to have at least one week of battery life, that would be pretty awesome, but that's not going to happen any time soon.

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#149

Post by criddell »

Finch2192 wrote: post #107

Can someone explain to me why this matters? It feels like CPU advancements in recent memory have brought nothing at all. It used to be, in the early days of smartphones, every generation brought something very new, something that can truly be considered an improvement. I remember the first dual core phone, the first quad core, etc. Nowadays, there is no noticeable difference at all. Even now, where phones have indeed…

I suppose a fast chip could always be under clocked and maybe that would get you less heat and power consumption.

Re: Apple's 7nm A12 chip could be the best feature in the 2018 iPhones

#150

Post by monocasa »

saagarjha wrote: post #132
monocasa wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in multitasking UX. Yes, technically there isn't anything stopping you from running a compiler on iOS, but there's so much more to having a relevant development platform than "does llvm technically run".

> Yes, technically there isn't anything stopping you from running a compiler on iOS, but there's so much more to having a relevant development platform than "does llvm technically run" You can't run unsigned code on iOS (with a few exceptions), and I don't believe that anyone has come up with a viable solution to codesign code on the fly on-device.

Sure, but that's easy for Apple to fix if they want. The lack of true, useful multitasking on iOS is the much bigger issue.
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