Isn't this mostly TSMC's achievement?
Can't their other clients reach the same density?
Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
91–100 of 183 posts
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like the argument here is "buy an iPad pro so frontend developers don't need to learn optimization"...?
Buy an iPad pro because time and time again we have seen that optimizing is not a priority for the majority of business. I think the cynicism here is that if only these frontend developers would just learn to optimize we would all finally be better off. I think there are two factors that push against this though. First, if you learn to optimize then you can charge more for your labor, and you will likely get a job so…
>> Second, companies exist for profit, and optimizing is not often the most profitable next step.
That's true and reasonable. And after this 5nm node, TSMC has 3nm and IIRC 2nm. We are at the point where throwing more hardware at slow software is becoming a non solution.
The good news is that in many cases there is a LOT of performance on the table on the software side.
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but Qualcomm, Nvidia, AMD and countless others use the same fabs or at least have access to the same fabs. It's Apple's engineering and design.
"Apple Books TSMC's Entire 5nm Production Capability" https://www.extremetech.com/computing/315186-apple-books-tsm... so it seems apple paid to get to the front of the line
And the problem there is? Any one of those companies are all long term TSMC customers and I have no doubt have solid working relationships with them. They would have had similar opportunity to book that fab capacity too.
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'm not sure you are serious, but eDRAM isn't a direct replacement for SRAM. At best it's useful for L3 or L4 cache given the inherently higher latencies. I think we just have to accept that silicon scaling is slowing down.
On the recent IBM z processors, eDRAM is used even for the L1 chip. And that's above 5GHz.
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#95I 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…
I work on a x86 interpreter that is only usable because of Apple's massive investment into these chips over the last couple years. I doubt that is what Apple was designing them for, but they are very useful to have as an application developer.
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Buy an iPad pro because time and time again we have seen that optimizing is not a priority for the majority of business. I think the cynicism here is that if only these frontend developers would just learn to optimize we would all finally be better off. I think there are two factors that push against this though. First, if you learn to optimize then you can charge more for your labor, and you will likely get a job so…
Which just means that your 1200$ iPad Pro will be slow in a year because the treadmill will continue.
I have an iPad using a four-year-old chip that's perfectly snappy. If this drift exists on iOS (it probably does) it is generally less pronounced compared to the life of the device.
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Battery life. The faster a task is completed (at a given power cost) the sooner the CPU can go back to standby.
Not so fast, especially these days. CPU power consumption is highly non-linear. You may well be benefitting from running a task longer, at a slower speed, and using less transistors.
In general time-to-sleep is still the defining factor in keeping battery life long. Sure, there are low-power cores, but I believe most UI code will not run at it since it's given high priority by the system.
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
This might be one of the reasons they're transitioning to Apple Silicon, as it will allow them to justify the raising R&D costs over a wider array of products.
Are Mac volume numbers even a rounding error relative to mobile devices?
Mac sales by volume are about 10% of iPhone sales.
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#99I was curious and looked up how this compared to the computer my family had 20 years ago: a Dell XPS tower with a Pentium III. The A14 has more than 1,000x as many transistors as what Intel was doing 20 years ago on a 128mm^2 die. Pretty incredible.
Re: Apple’s A14 Packs 134M Transistors/mm²
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if Apple Silicon means we might finally get PUBG on Mac. If they can make it work on an iPad, they can make it work on a Mac with similar hardware... right?! I'm already missing the glorious few months that PUBG could be played on Mac via Stadia.
Basically, no. The issue was never the instruction set, you still have to support the interface and the OS which nobody is bothered to do because cost benefit. Changing the chip isn't going to change the code base of the operating system.
Unless they specifically opt out, almost all iOS apps will be available on Apple Silicon macs at launch.