Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
semianalysis.com
Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
1–10 of 183 posts
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#2"A14 comes in at a cool 78% effective transistor density when compared to theoretical density." Wowsers. Apparently SRAM is the limiting factor.
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#3The article says that Apple isn't making full use of the 5nm process node, and blames lack of SRAM scaling for it (presumably due to the large amount of L3 cache). Is this a problem that all processors are about to hit, or is this going to be overcome once process engineers are more familiar with 5nm?
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#4"A14 comes in at a cool 78% effective transistor density when compared to theoretical density." Wowsers. Apparently SRAM is the limiting factor.
If SRAM is as ubiquitous throughout chip designs as the article suggests, wouldn't that mean the theoretical density prediction is off?
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#5"A14 comes in at a cool 78% effective transistor density when compared to theoretical density." Wowsers. Apparently SRAM is the limiting factor.
If SRAM is as ubiquitous throughout chip designs as the article suggests, wouldn't that mean the theoretical density prediction is off?
Time for eDRAM! Ok, this process doesn't support eDRAM. Also, I don't understand the SRAM scaling failure here and I don't know if it would apply to eDRAM too. But it's something to think about given the increasing importance of wire delay.
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#6I think this is cool if they’re the future of the Mac, but aren’t these chips just wasted in the iPad? I say this as an iPad Pro (1st-gen) owner ... it’s already way more processing power than I can really use, because after trying for months to get a sensible workflow going (mostly based around Pythonista, Editorial and RealVNC) I’ve relegated it to a OneNote and Netflix machine. What’s the point other than the coolness factor? Is it some future AR-type application?
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#7For comparison I was trying to nail down what Intel's 7nm process is, but I've found answers between 120nm and 215nm. If anyone knows, that'd be an interesting comparison.
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#8Foundry sale price of $238/chip seems way too high.
See e.g. https://www.cultofmac.com/658650/iphone-11-pro-max-productio...
> Apple A13 processor that (is) supposedly is priced at $64.
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#9I think this is cool if they’re the future of the Mac, but aren’t these chips just wasted in the iPad? I say this as an iPad Pro (1st-gen) owner ... it’s already way more processing power than I can really use, because after trying for months to get a sensible workflow going (mostly based around Pythonista, Editorial and RealVNC) I’ve relegated it to a OneNote and Netflix machine. What’s the point other than the cool…
My understanding from talking to friends who work at Apple and some of the product briefs is a lot of the hardware is used for video and photo processing. Video games take advantage of the extra CPU/GPU power as well.
I don’t think that’s all that Apple specific as there are increased ISPs and security chips on other phones as well.
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#10Foundry sale price of $238/chip seems way too high. See e.g. https://www.cultofmac.com/658650/iphone-11-pro-max-productio... > Apple A13 processor that (is) supposedly is priced at $64.
Somebody has to do it and Apple has the cash, I think they can afford to.