Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role

#121

Post by nomel » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 12:18 AM UTC

dgfgfdagasdfgfa wrote: post #46

joezydeco wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... or iOS will be graduating up to be the new OS across both mobile and desktop platforms? Earlier today via HN.... http://www.macworld.com/article/3163248/ios/the-future-of-io...

People have been saying this since the inception of iOS; given the trajectory of Cocoa vs UIKit, I don't see much sign of this.

I'm not familiar with either API, but why wouldn't it be possible to get Cocoa working in iOS? I imagine UIKit would be optimized for small, low power, devices, which will always exist in some, ever shrinking, form.

It's all just a BSD variant, when you get down to it.

Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role

#122

Post by wmf » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 12:19 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #108

It has been interesting to watch the ARM ecosystem unfold. Sort of like seeing a levy breach where just a trickle of water starts flowing over it and then more and more and more. Apple has the resources and the motivation to build a "desktop" 64 bit ARM processor. The history here is also interesting. After debuting the Macintosh in 1984, and getting into fights with Motorola over what should be in the next generatio…

Apple did not have the IP rights to continue PowerPC development

Didn't they get those rights when they bought PA Semi? I think it didn't make sense for Apple to develop their own processor in 2005 because they were just in a much weaker position than they are now.

And it was said that in the old days Exponential got their PowerPC license from Apple.

Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role

#123

Post by abalone » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 12:20 AM UTC

syncsynchalt wrote: post #96

abalone wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, there is one thing I've never seen mentioned - a combined Mac/iOS binary. Because they're already doing something better. All iOS apps compile to Bitcode, an intermediary representation that can then compile an optimized binary for the target device architecture.[1] So if there ever were a desire to run iOS apps on Mac, they'd just compile from Bitcode. Having said that, there's explicitly zero desire to d…

Bitcode allows you to optimize between chip versions with different opcodes, but not different architectures, word sizes, or endianness. Source: the recent Accidental Tech Podcast that interviewed Chris Lattner.

Ok fine, but the broader App Thinning featureset of the App Store still means they wouldn't do a universal binary. They'd deliver just what the target device needs.

Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role

#124

Post by ChuckMcM » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 12:21 AM UTC

ben_jones wrote: post #114

ChuckMcM wrote: post #108

It has been interesting to watch the ARM ecosystem unfold. Sort of like seeing a levy breach where just a trickle of water starts flowing over it and then more and more and more. Apple has the resources and the motivation to build a "desktop" 64 bit ARM processor. The history here is also interesting. After debuting the Macintosh in 1984, and getting into fights with Motorola over what should be in the next generatio…

It's really interesting how the historical strengths of companies can persist even after decades of evolution. If the people are coming and going, how is this institutionalized success being cultivated and maintained?

To be honest I don't know the answer to that. That said, Apple has always had corporate value of being maximally responsible for their own destiny. It's hallmark card wisdom to know the things you can change and accept the things you can't change, but in Apple's case their history has been filled with finding things we can't change and replacing them with something we can. So where one company might say "Well we have to work with what ever the microprocessor company will agree too" Apple wants to say "The microprocessor company will do what ever we require of them." And if they can't find such a company they look at becoming a microprocessor company.

A lot of that thinking was laid out fairly extensively in the lawsuit over manufacturing sapphire they got into. The manufacturer (GT Advanced) complained (reasonably I think) that Apple's contracts were so onerous as to make them employees of the company in everything but name. And that appears to be how Apple likes it, complete control of their destiny when ever possible.

Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role

#125

Post by faragon » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 12:27 AM UTC

Anyone knows how far is Apple from getting the following desktop system as one SoC?

- 4GHz 12-core 64-bit ARM OooE with 256KiB L2 cache per core

- 12MiB of L3 cache

- Integrated graphics with 128MB eDRAM

- PCI-Express buses

- 35 GB/s DDR4 memory controller

- 5-65W power usage

Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role

#126

Post by beokop » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 12:27 AM UTC

ben_jones wrote: post #114

ChuckMcM wrote: post #108

It has been interesting to watch the ARM ecosystem unfold. Sort of like seeing a levy breach where just a trickle of water starts flowing over it and then more and more and more. Apple has the resources and the motivation to build a "desktop" 64 bit ARM processor. The history here is also interesting. After debuting the Macintosh in 1984, and getting into fights with Motorola over what should be in the next generatio…

It's really interesting how the historical strengths of companies can persist even after decades of evolution. If the people are coming and going, how is this institutionalized success being cultivated and maintained?

Apple isn't going down this road again because it's "in their culture", they're doing it because it puts them at an advantage and because they can. Changing the architecture means changes from the silicon level to the application level; it's not so much about engineering talent as it is controlling the entire stack. Still, 30 years later, Apple is the only company that could pull it off.

Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role

#127

Post by rthille » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 12:34 AM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #90

astrodust wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NeXT had an Intel version as a hedge as well. Seems those two projects were destined to merge together.

Not just Intel but PA-RISC and Sparc as well, in addition to M68K.

Also Moto 88110 RISC processors (though those NeXT products never saw the light of day...)

Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role

#128

Post by ChuckMcM » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 12:36 AM UTC

wmf wrote: post #122

ChuckMcM wrote: post #108

It has been interesting to watch the ARM ecosystem unfold. Sort of like seeing a levy breach where just a trickle of water starts flowing over it and then more and more and more. Apple has the resources and the motivation to build a "desktop" 64 bit ARM processor. The history here is also interesting. After debuting the Macintosh in 1984, and getting into fights with Motorola over what should be in the next generatio…

Apple did not have the IP rights to continue PowerPC development Didn't they get those rights when they bought PA Semi? I think it didn't make sense for Apple to develop their own processor in 2005 because they were just in a much weaker position than they are now. And it was said that in the old days Exponential got their PowerPC license from Apple.

I don't believe PA Semi ever had a transferable license to Power. They had their own architecture which was very power efficient and they were a CPU design house with ARM experience (they did StrongARM at DEC). What it looks like from the outside looking in, is that Apple bought out a full architecture license (with derivative ownership) from ARM and bought PA Semi to be the core team to start building CPUs that they had 100% of the rights to.

Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role

#129

Post by ClassyJacket » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 12:38 AM UTC

Interesting. The article says that Apple is considering an ARM co-processor, not a replacement for the Intel CPU.

I have no doubts at all that Apple have at least had extensive internal discussion and testing about this. In fact, I believe they've probably done extensive internal discussion and testing about replacing the Intel one altogether, but can't get there yet.

It'd give Apple more control over their device design and release schedule, potentially lower power consumption, and straight up more profit via vertical integration.

Like the PowerPC transition, they could come up with a new Rosetta - which was the emulator that ran old PowerPC apps on x86. Microsoft has recently demoed x86 apps on ARM, and I'm sure Apple could do the same.

As far as I know there's no fundamental reason ARM processors can't be as fast as x86 ones, they just haven't been targeted for those kind of devices yet - but I'd be happy to be corrected by any CPU experts. And with Apple's success in the mobile processor space, I have no doubts that if anyone could pull this off, it'd be them.

So what's holding them back? Thunderbolt. They've gone all-in on that already - touting as the future of high speed external devices, and giving the MacBook Pro nothing but four Thunderbolt enabled USB-C ports and a headphone port. But Thunderbolt is an Intel property, only available on their CPUs.

The 12" MacBook already doesn't have Thunderbolt (the MacBook Pro does), but it feels like with software compatibility, this would be an all-or-nothing thing. I don't see Apple continuing to sell both x86 and ARM machines on an ongoing basis. So how would they get Thunderbolt into the MacBook Pro?

Having a co processor to handle PowerNap would allow them to take a small step in that direction without losing Thunderbolt or having to develop a slow x86 emulator. They could even offload other parts of the OS to the ARM cpu, freeing up the main CPU for other software, and to go into low power mode more often.

Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role

#130

Post by sjwright » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 12:38 AM UTC

ben_jones wrote: post #114

ChuckMcM wrote: post #108

It has been interesting to watch the ARM ecosystem unfold. Sort of like seeing a levy breach where just a trickle of water starts flowing over it and then more and more and more. Apple has the resources and the motivation to build a "desktop" 64 bit ARM processor. The history here is also interesting. After debuting the Macintosh in 1984, and getting into fights with Motorola over what should be in the next generatio…

It's really interesting how the historical strengths of companies can persist even after decades of evolution. If the people are coming and going, how is this institutionalized success being cultivated and maintained?

My guess would be that such specific historical strengths are local manifestations of a more general instinct that is nurtured within a company culture. This instinct would result in similar behaviour when presented with a similar situation — for better or worse.

I also suspect that a company like Apple would have a portion of employees that stick around for the very long term, who have been there since early days and can act as the company's institutional memory.

Specifically in this instance though, it's pretty clear that Apple is going down this road because they've already started going down this road. This is all just straightforward technology and skill reuse: the touch bar is pretty much an Apple Watch in a different package.