Teardown of M1 Mini

[Kung gu]

Such a small board

M1 Mac Mini Logic Board

Explore this photo album by Brandon Geekabit on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

 

[chabig]

With 16 billion transistors on the M1, Apple doesn't need a lot of supporting chips.

 

[dgdosen]

Is it me - or do these M1 SOC covers look like a hack?! There's kind of a border around the three sides of the processor cover - like it was initially designed to hold a bigger SOC... And then Apple decided to clip it and attach some, per iFixIt, SK hynix memory chips where the rest of the SOC would be.

That makes me think:
- The memory integrated in the SOC isn't that tightly integrated.
- There's a bigger SOC right around the corner.

Maybe the 14"/16" SOCs will have that full size SOC with a beveled cover over all four sides.
Maybe the logic board was designed to be usable by both the 8 core and 12 core SOCs...

I want to know how the sausage got made...

 

[Gnattu]

Is it me - or do these M1 SOC covers look like a hack?! There's kind of a border around the three sides of the processor cover - like it was initially designed to hold a bigger SOC... And then Apple decided to clip it and attach some, per iFixIt, SK hynix memory chips where the rest of the SOC would be.

That makes me think:
- The memory integrated in the SOC isn't that tightly integrated.
- There's a bigger SOC right around the corner.

Maybe the 14"/16" SOCs will have that full size SOC with a beveled cover over all four sides.
Maybe the logic board was designed to be usable by both the 8 core and 12 core SOCs...

View attachment 1679812

I want to know how the sausage got made...

It's nothing new. They are using similar packages since A12X.