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Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

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Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#21

Post by amelius »

systemvoltage wrote: post #6

Kind of sad to think about this - Why does marketing dept not actually show these and instead put up a cartoonized version of Apple's chips [1]? That's in every keynote. This is a rhetorical question, the real mystery is why does an average consumer want to see unreal things to convince them its cooler/better? You'd think seeing actual die shots would be more convincing to average consumer, but they love marketing th…

I think if Apple wants to be a tech leader they should open up more. The secrecy is totally unnecessary.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#22

Post by als0 »

kbumsik wrote: post #19

Interesting to see the CPU isn't actually that big in the chip. What are the uncommented parts? Maybe peripheral interfaces?

Cache, GPU, Secure Enclave, Neural processors, peripheral controllers. GPU takes the lion’s share.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#23

Post by coder543 »

als0 wrote: post #22
kbumsik wrote: post #19

Interesting to see the CPU isn't actually that big in the chip. What are the uncommented parts? Maybe peripheral interfaces?

Cache, GPU, Secure Enclave, Neural processors, peripheral controllers. GPU takes the lion’s share.

The Cache, GPU, and NPU are all already labeled in the image.

The Secure Enclave is a good one to point out that is in the unlabeled space.

Certainly some non-DDR peripherals are in the unlabeled space, but it would be neat to have a more comprehensively labeled diagram. I wouldn't expect most peripherals to take up so many transistors compared to the processor cores.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#24

Post by mirthflat83 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #16
madeofpalk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a technical consumer I don’t know why I would want to see the actual die shots - it really doesn’t tell me anything at all. The graphics they put on slides or marketing sites aren’t supposed to be technical reference material, usually it’s just about conveying the idea of a SoC or performance improvements, or relative sizes, or whatever.

The inquiry I am making is more general - infantilization of consumers and the idea of dumbing things down for consumers like they're blobs of meat with cash to spare. You don't need to see the cartoonized version of it either. May be its easier as a schematic to explain? Not sure. A list of M1's features would work equally well. I think its just marketing pizzaz.

Your refusal to take a moment to think why Apple’s marketing team did this is very funny. Do you think they just throw a dart into a spinning board when making decisions like this? There’s a difference between “dumbing” things down and effectively conveying your messages. Suggesting that they include an actual die shot in their ads for general consumers is one of the most HN-esque comments I read this month.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#26

Post by als0 »

coder543 wrote: post #23
als0 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cache, GPU, Secure Enclave, Neural processors, peripheral controllers. GPU takes the lion’s share.

The Cache, GPU, and NPU are all already labeled in the image. The Secure Enclave is a good one to point out that is in the unlabeled space. Certainly some non-DDR peripherals are in the unlabeled space, but it would be neat to have a more comprehensively labeled diagram. I wouldn't expect most peripherals to take up so many transistors compared to the processor cores.

Sorry, was looking at the marketing image. The enclave would be quite tiny though. Id say most of the undocumented part is custom glue logic which isn’t particularly identifiable.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#27

Post by systemvoltage »

mirthflat83 wrote: post #24
systemvoltage wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inquiry I am making is more general - infantilization of consumers and the idea of dumbing things down for consumers like they're blobs of meat with cash to spare. You don't need to see the cartoonized version of it either. May be its easier as a schematic to explain? Not sure. A list of M1's features would work equally well. I think its just marketing pizzaz.

Your refusal to take a moment to think why Apple’s marketing team did this is very funny. Do you think they just throw a dart into a spinning board when making decisions like this? There’s a difference between “dumbing” things down and effectively conveying your messages. Suggesting that they include an actual die shot in their ads for general consumers is one of the most HN-esque comments I read this month.

> Do you think they just throw a dart into a spinning board when making decisions like this?

I think the opposite. Apple has perfected marketing in a lot of ways.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#29

Post by zamadatix »

systemvoltage wrote: post #16
madeofpalk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a technical consumer I don’t know why I would want to see the actual die shots - it really doesn’t tell me anything at all. The graphics they put on slides or marketing sites aren’t supposed to be technical reference material, usually it’s just about conveying the idea of a SoC or performance improvements, or relative sizes, or whatever.

The inquiry I am making is more general - infantilization of consumers and the idea of dumbing things down for consumers like they're blobs of meat with cash to spare. You don't need to see the cartoonized version of it either. May be its easier as a schematic to explain? Not sure. A list of M1's features would work equally well. I think its just marketing pizzaz.

Apple isn't an education company so it shouldn't be surprising their marketing department doesn't worry about simplifying things for their real goals. At the end of the day the customers are blobs of meat with cash to spare and the advertisement is to change the latter part not teach the former.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#30

Post by eyelidlessness »

systemvoltage wrote: post #6

Kind of sad to think about this - Why does marketing dept not actually show these and instead put up a cartoonized version of Apple's chips [1]? That's in every keynote. This is a rhetorical question, the real mystery is why does an average consumer want to see unreal things to convince them its cooler/better? You'd think seeing actual die shots would be more convincing to average consumer, but they love marketing th…

They've actually done this for some web pages, you likely can find them on Wayback.
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