Earlier quoted context omitted.
hmm yeah. its cool that musk knows more about this than the entire industry
think different
[dead]
How can Apple deal with the memory shortage?
131–140 of 202 posts
Re: How can Apple deal with the memory shortage?
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been running an M1 Air w/ 8GB for a few years, and it's still working fine.
Me too but the latest macOS version has ruined it for me, I had to switch back to a previous version.
But how are Neo users dealing with this? It’s a new machine, surely it works with 8GB?
Re: How can Apple deal with the memory shortage?
#133I wonder if companies like Apple will eventually start making memory themselves.
But memory is a quite a specialist manufacturing process, they couldn't just send a design to TSMC and get the same quality and cost. It would take years (decades) to create their own factories that might be able to produce competitive memory. If they use a third party to manufacture with existing skills (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron etc) they might as well just use their designs too (and buy their chips)
Static RAM needs 6 transistors per cell, an M2 Ultra has 134 billion transistors, do the division and you get... "it doesn't work that way".
Re: How can Apple deal with the memory shortage?
#134Just a thought - stop bloody soldering the RAM and the SSDs. That partially transfers the burden on to the customers and makes their product more repairable ... Mac Minis (with un-soldered RAM and HDD / SSDs) used to be sold with minimum 4 GB RAM, if I remember right). This, way, you can still sell devices with lower RAM, and customers can upgrade in the future when supply increases.
Even though I don't necessarily like it, I understand why they solder the RAM on the SOC: Higher bandwidth/greater performance, better power efficiency, etc. But they have no excuse for the SSD.
Re: How can Apple deal with the memory shortage?
#135Ex-Apple kernel engineer here, Apple will deal with the memory shortage by making software more efficient in ram usage. Apple will just make every aspect of the system more and more memory efficient. They've done it before over and over and can do it again.
I read this as satire.
Better performance will be achieved by adding more whitespaces and increasing the radius of rounded corners.
Re: How can Apple deal with the memory shortage?
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
in a sense that's exactly what cartel wants - to lure out investments that will get squashed into uselessness by supply flood that will follow
The key is Apple can be their own customer and just not care anymore. It’ll probably only be worth it if it enables something “new” like more bigger Ultra chips or something.
and that's part of risk management, on both sides
does Apple have enough of a design moat to overcome eventual overprice compared to competitors when "outisde" production is 2,4,10x cheaper
does Apple have enough of income/savings to maintain internal production capacity if it decides to switch back to outside sources
or can Apple acquire enough fab competence to negate internal/external price difference
we'll see how it plays out
Re: How can Apple deal with the memory shortage?
#137Just a thought - stop bloody soldering the RAM and the SSDs. That partially transfers the burden on to the customers and makes their product more repairable ... Mac Minis (with un-soldered RAM and HDD / SSDs) used to be sold with minimum 4 GB RAM, if I remember right). This, way, you can still sell devices with lower RAM, and customers can upgrade in the future when supply increases.
This makes everyone’s computer slower, more expensive, and less power efficient, and 95-99% of people will never open their computer anyway.
Re: How can Apple deal with the memory shortage?
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
But memory is a quite a specialist manufacturing process, they couldn't just send a design to TSMC and get the same quality and cost. It would take years (decades) to create their own factories that might be able to produce competitive memory. If they use a third party to manufacture with existing skills (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron etc) they might as well just use their designs too (and buy their chips)
Static RAM needs 6 transistors per cell, an M2 Ultra has 134 billion transistors, do the division and you get... "it doesn't work that way".
Static RAM is not DRAM.
You certainly could do try a 20bn cell SRAM, in 155mm^2, if you could handle the routing, but the power consumption might surprise you.
Re: How can Apple deal with the memory shortage?
#139Just a thought - stop bloody soldering the RAM and the SSDs. That partially transfers the burden on to the customers and makes their product more repairable ... Mac Minis (with un-soldered RAM and HDD / SSDs) used to be sold with minimum 4 GB RAM, if I remember right). This, way, you can still sell devices with lower RAM, and customers can upgrade in the future when supply increases.
Even though I don't necessarily like it, I understand why they solder the RAM on the SOC: Higher bandwidth/greater performance, better power efficiency, etc. But they have no excuse for the SSD.
The excuse for the SSD is that the controller is on the SoC
The shortage that connects to a modern Mac isn’t an SSD — it’s raw NAND.
Re: How can Apple deal with the memory shortage?
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
We aren't talking about making new lug-nuts. A company can't just will a fab into existence. For example, Micron is actively building a few new fabs. One of which has been in progress since Biden (pretty close to my home in fact). It's not going to be completed for another 5 years at a minimum. And this is a company that has the experience and partnerships for producing fabs. Yes, a new company might decide they want…
> And this is a company that has the experience and partnerships for producing fabs. Not even they necessarily have the experience to do it! Intel has a policy called "Copy EXACTLY!" for fab construction where they make every irrelevant detail the same as their last fab, because they don't actually know which of the details matter.
Oh for sure. A story that gets told at the micron factory is that for a long time they'd experience chip failures at increased rates. During the night it was pretty good, but during the day these random failures would creep up.
After spending a lot of time studying the problem what they finally realized is they built the building too close to the interstate and vibrations from the interstate were ultimately making their way into the factory causing errors.
To combat this problem, they spent millions retrofitting shock absorbers onto the building.
It's not shocking that intel would do the same because even the slightest movements and vibrations can spoil the chips. Putting a restroom in the wrong spot might spoil a batch when someone flushes the toilet.