Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#51

Post by dannyw » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 5:38 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #37

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…

The other discussion here recently about how Apple is very silo'd internally is relevant: the marketing department very likely doesn't have access to real die photos.

They do, die shots are literally on Apple's marketing page: https://www.apple.com/mac/m1/

A quick visual comparison shows this to be pretty accurate, just inverted and rotated.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#52

Post by texse » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 5:41 AM UTC

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?

It may be interesting to look at a more completely labeled die image (eg. a recent AMD laptop chip [1]).

I/O controllers, various PHYs, the display pipeline and the media engine account for a significant fraction of chip.

We also know the M1 has an integrated SSD controller, ISP and Thunderbolt which probably take a good chunk of room too.

[1] https://potatopc.net/amd-renoir-die-annotation-raises-hopes-...

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#53

Post by saagarjha » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 5:42 AM UTC

dilippkumar wrote: post #2

How does one identify which regions of a die-shot is the CPU or GPU? Are the structures on silicon easily recognizable from such pictures? How far can someone with time and money go towards reverse engineering a chip from such pictures?

In general, the other comments give an idea of how to do it. But Apple shared their own die shots in their presentation ;)

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#54

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 5:50 AM UTC

wmf wrote: post #45

im3w1l wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do people with such a grasp have to say about it?

M1's performance is great, but there isn't much evidence to attribute it to the memory subsystem. Also, people wanting to fit 32GB worth of apps into 16GB is just wishful thinking that isn't supported by evidence either.

Do we know what benefit they're getting by putting the memory on the chip to begin with? I had initially assumed there was some non-trivial performance advantage in it, but now people are saying not so much, so why did they do it?

It seems weird to artificially limit the max memory if there was no advantage in it.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#55

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 6:02 AM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #49

amelius wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Are you claiming that they are not a tech leader right now?

They're in a weird spot. They're obviously making a lot of money, but most companies in their position do a lot of work to court developers and accessory makers etc. Apple's position is essentially that they control the market so you need them more than they need you.

But that makes others resent them. Which is a vulnerability because it means you have all the rest of the industry ready to sell Apple down the river the first chance they get, whether it's in making antitrust claims or lobbying against them or just fervently supporting any half viable competitor in the hopes that it becomes fully viable.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#56

Post by jeffbee » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 6:02 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #54

wmf wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

M1's performance is great, but there isn't much evidence to attribute it to the memory subsystem. Also, people wanting to fit 32GB worth of apps into 16GB is just wishful thinking that isn't supported by evidence either.

Do we know what benefit they're getting by putting the memory on the chip to begin with? I had initially assumed there was some non-trivial performance advantage in it, but now people are saying not so much, so why did they do it? It seems weird to artificially limit the max memory if there was no advantage in it.

The benefit is they can charge you $200 for memory they bought from Samsung for $15. There’s no performance advantage to the user.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#57

Post by wmf » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 6:02 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #54

wmf wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

M1's performance is great, but there isn't much evidence to attribute it to the memory subsystem. Also, people wanting to fit 32GB worth of apps into 16GB is just wishful thinking that isn't supported by evidence either.

Do we know what benefit they're getting by putting the memory on the chip to begin with? I had initially assumed there was some non-trivial performance advantage in it, but now people are saying not so much, so why did they do it? It seems weird to artificially limit the max memory if there was no advantage in it.

I think it's a power advantage, not performance.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#58

Post by forgotmypw » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 6:15 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #55

manigandham wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you claiming that they are not a tech leader right now?

They're in a weird spot. They're obviously making a lot of money, but most companies in their position do a lot of work to court developers and accessory makers etc. Apple's position is essentially that they control the market so you need them more than they need you. But that makes others resent them. Which is a vulnerability because it means you have all the rest of the industry ready to sell Apple down the river t…

This is how it seems to me too. I still have their hardware I got years ago and it works great, but it's been a couple of years since I've decided to refuse any software upgrades from them, and to avoid their hardware. Their attitude seems to be getting more and more "our way or the highway", and I'm not interested in playing those games.

Previously I already switched from Windows to Mac as my primary environment, so going to GNU/*ix was not a big stretch. I already know several non-hackers who have gone this route as well.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#59

Post by ogre_codes » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 6:45 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #53

dilippkumar wrote: post #2

How does one identify which regions of a die-shot is the CPU or GPU? Are the structures on silicon easily recognizable from such pictures? How far can someone with time and money go towards reverse engineering a chip from such pictures?

In general, the other comments give an idea of how to do it. But Apple shared their own die shots in their presentation ;)

And they were actually accurate which is unusual for this sort of thing.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Die-Shots

#60

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 6:54 AM UTC

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #12

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.

Because it's more real, and more inspiring to look at real technical material.

[deleted]