Upgradable memory in future Apple Silicon chips

[MayaUser]

The things Telsa buyers are OK with are not necessarily things that most consumers will be OK with.

Not just Tesla...germans cars too and so many others. im ok with it. I like to upgrade my car once per year

 

[johnmacward]

I'm expecting that Apple will allow user to upgrade the unified memory in future ARM Macs. This will also likely make it cheaper to manufacture as it will reduce the parts needed to make Macs. This means if you buy a bottom of the line Mac then there will be headroom to grow the unified memory footprint easily. Feels like Apple will be onto a winner with it.

Considering RAM has been soldered to the board for the past 3/4 generations of MBP’s and now they’ve gone even further to hiding it inside the die of the M1 chip, I fail to see why Apple would backtrack to making RAM user upgradable. What’s your logic behind this happening ? Trust me, I’d be in favour of it but it’s likelihood is about as good as me winning the lottery tomorrow.

 

[avkills]

Why do people keep insisting that the unified RAM is part of the M1 silicon? It is not. It is part of the SOC package that is all. The RAM chips are separate silicon.

Apple is going to have to find a solution for the Mac Pro because that audience expects user upgradeable RAM.

 

[Bug-Creator]

This is happening a lot in retro hardware development to reduce costs and in the embedded space.

Sure both markets use cheap/old/simple HW and then add value by making it work in obscure applications.
The RAM on the M1s is current tech and there is a real $ difference for Apple to put in smaller or bigger modules.

Might happen in 10 years, but I'd say it's more likely that all HW is irrelevant as everything is already faster than anybody needs (for consumer HW) and we see a Mac/PC just the same way you would today see a toaster or hair dryer.

 

[Bodhitree]

My guess would be there will be no user-upgrade able RAM in the AS Mac Pro. In terms of software definable Silicon for RAM it may happen but only after memory moves onto the SOC itself, which I think is going to be a few die shrinks down the road. Rough guess it’s 10 years away before this tech makes it to macs, and then it depends how much Apple are willing to piss the customers off.

 

[LinkRS]

Not to mention, if Apple only had "max" Apple SOCs produced, prices would most likely go up. The advantage to offering a range of options is if they get a "bad" M1 Max SOC, they can disable the bad sections and sell it as a lower-end Max (with less GPU cores for example). With the idea that they only produce the "max" variety, they would have to toss all of the "bad" ones, reducing yield, which will increase cost.

Some truth to the idea of only producing higher-end CPUs exists in Intel CPUs. As productions yields matured, they get fewer and fewer "bad" chips, but they don't always need the higher end models. So they will take a perfectly good i9 (for example), mask off parts, and sell it as a i7, or sometimes even lower. This fact is what sparked the overclocking craze in the early 2000s with Celeron CPUs.

Thanks to Bug-Creator for pointing out my mistake

 

[Bug-Creator]

The advantage to offering a range of options is if they get a "bad" M1 Max SOC, they can disable the bad sections and sell it as a M1 Pro

Pro and Max are 2 different chips and Apple can't just bin/cut a Max to a Pro.

Both Pro and Mac have binned down variants with some core defective/disabled.

 

[TSE]

The ONLY product I see upgradeable memory in is MAYBE the Mac Pro. If I had to bet, I would say it's included. Pros absolutely do upgrade their memory more often down the road, and the downtime saved from IT replacing memory saves companies tons of money.

 

[LinkRS]

Pro and Max are 2 different chips and Apple can't just bin/cut a Max to a Pro.

Both Pro and Mac have binned down variants with some core defective/disabled.

Touché. My example was bad, I'll correct it. Not Max to Pro, but could be a "lesser" Max. This binning process is common with semiconductors. Thanks for pointing this out!

Rich S.

 

[Boil]

The current state of binning in regards to the M1 Pro & M1 Max SoCs...?

M1 Pro SoC (Jade Chop)

Disabled CPU & GPU cores
8-core CPU (6P/2E)
14-core GPU

Disabled GPU cores
10-core CPU (8P/2E)
14-core GPU

"Perfect Die"
10-core CPU (8P/2E)
16-core GPU


M1 Max SoC (Jade Full)

Disabled GPU cores
10-core CPU (8P/2E)
24-core GPU

"Perfect Die"
10-core CPU (8P/2E)
32-core GPU

 

[CooperBox]

I'm expecting that Apple will allow user to upgrade the unified memory in future ARM Macs. This will also likely make it cheaper to manufacture as it will reduce the parts needed to make Macs. This means if you buy a bottom of the line Mac then there will be headroom to grow the unified memory footprint easily. Feels like Apple will be onto a winner with it.

I don't like to burst your expectation bubble but imho there's as much chance of this happening as seeing Father Christmas arriving this season with his sleigh being pulled by unicorns.

 

[Fishrrman]

Going forward, I doubt any future Apple products will have either expandable memory or the ability to swap drives.

The only exception may be the upcoming "smaller Mac Pro".
Even so, if it has expansion options, even they will be limited (at least inside of the computer).

The days of "user-upgradeability" seem to be gone, and I don't think they're comin' back.

 

[wilberforce]

Many posters in here apparently completely misunderstand the OP's thread - unfortunately because the OP did not properly explain in post #1, but did later explain in post #7.
The thread is NOT about physically upgrading memory (or other features), it is about unlocking additional RAM (or other features) that already physically exist on the SoC, by paid license upgrades.
And this is not just a made-up idea.
I think it is an interesting discussion topic, different from the hundreds of threads about physically upgrading RAM.

 

[zarathu]

Anyone who believes you will be able to add RAM to an Apple SoC has a fundamental misunderstanding of how these chips are manufactured. Are you, Wilberforce, suggesting that there is unused RAM on the SoC?

 

[robco74]

Given the cost of DDR5 and the chip shortage, I don't see Apple doing software unlocks for a while. For spinning up VMs in the cloud, it makes sense. Tesla charges to unlock "FSD", but it's a pipe dream ATM and much of that hardware is required for standard AutoPilot. Tesla is also now shipping cars without USB ports and BMW is shipping cars without touchscreens due to supply issues.

 

[jz0309]

The problem is not the chip itself but the RAM. Experiments show that the chip will recognize and use whatever amount of RAM is there. But resoldering the RAM is basically out of the question, as is using socketed RAM. So the only option is pre-installing larger amount of RAM on the device and letting the user unlock it for a fee, which is not economically viable due to the scarcity of RAM itself.

yes, and you would now add silicon that might or might not be used thus increasing the BOM cost for Apple, and require said silicon to be produced.
Technically what OP is suggesting IS possible, but at this point in time economically doesn't make sense, yet ...

 

[wilberforce]

Anyone who believes you will be able to add RAM to an Apple SoC has a fundamental misunderstanding of how these chips are manufactured. Are you, Wilberforce, suggesting that there is unused RAM on the SoC?

The notion, as expressed by OP in Post #7, is that in future Apple could make a single SoC, with all the maximum RAM, CPUs and GPUs already physically present, and unlock RAM, GPU, and CPU depending on how much license fee you paid. Sort of like reverse binning.
This is not a new idea, Intel has suggested it.
I personally don't think Apple will do this, but it is interesting.

Even with the current SoC, some people have looked at the layouts and surmised there appear to be some portions/packages that are currently unused, or are duplicates.

 

[dogslobber]

yes, and you would now add silicon that might or might not be used thus increasing the BOM cost for Apple, and require said silicon to be produced.
Technically what OP is suggesting IS possible, but at this point in time economically doesn't make sense, yet ...

You might want to explain to the wider audience about what a BOM is. Not everybody out with hardware design has a fundamental grasp of what it is or why it's important.

 

[jz0309]

The notion, as expressed by OP in Post #7, is that in future Apple could make a single SoC, with all the maximum RAM, CPUs and GPUs already physically present, and unlock RAM, GPU, and CPU depending on how much license fee you paid. Sort of like reverse binning.
This is not a new idea, Intel has suggested it.
I personally don't think Apple will do this, but it is interesting.

Even with the current SoC, some people have looked at the layouts and surmised there appear to be some portions/packages that are currently unused, or are duplicates.

Possible, but one needs to understand that current RAM fab process is very different from Apple SOC and on a different mode. RAM manufacturers do not use the 7, 5 etc nm nomenclature and are actually slightly behind, so again, while feasible, not on todays fab technology

 

[leman]

The notion, as expressed by OP in Post #7, is that in future Apple could make a single SoC, with all the maximum RAM, CPUs and GPUs already physically present, and unlock RAM, GPU, and CPU depending on how much license fee you paid. Sort of like reverse binning.
.

Maybe some sort of future tech will allow it (like stacking RAM on top of the processing clusters). Right now I don’t see the incentive. The resulting chips would be way to large to be economically feasible. Already on M1 Max Apple has to disable a large portion of cache, likely due to yield issues. Putting the RAM on chip? That’s still years abs years off…

 

[jz0309]

You might want to explain to the wider audience about what a BOM is. Not everybody out with hardware design has a fundamental grasp of what it is or why it's important.

BoM = Bill of Materials. That lists every single piece that makes up say an iPhone, SOC, RAM, modem, glass, case, every single piece. Same for a Mac.
Let’s say for discussion that the BoM of a MBP is $1000 for the M1 Pro and 32GB of RAM, that is what it costs Apple to assemble that MBP and they sell for for $2000,
That same BoM for the 64GB version costs 1100 and Apple sells it for 2200.
IF Apple only assembles max’s out MBP the BoM cost is higher for all models, thus reducing apples margins for the lower end configs.
That’s why it economically at this point does not make sense (to me).
Im using above numbers solely for illustration purposes, it is much more complicated in reality

 

[deconstruct60]

I'm expecting that Apple will allow user to upgrade the unified memory in future ARM Macs. This will also likely make it cheaper to manufacture as it will reduce the parts needed to make Macs.

Semi-custom parts only lead to higher component costs when keep their number produced relatively very low.
Apple deployed T2 chips across the whole Mac line up and saw no real , substantive hit on margins or revenues. That is in part because they got economies of scalles by putting the same T2 chip into the whole Mac line up. The Mini, iMac , and Mac Pro had no touch bar to drive but the T2 still have that functionality.

Similarly Apple's custom PMIC chips aren't necessarily more expensive overall than off-the-shelf components if the unit volume is high. Even more so with the A-series in the triple million digit run rates of the iPhone.


Same issue with the semi-custome LPDDR4 and LPDDR5 packages that Apple is using. If uniformly deployed to the whole 20M/year mac unit sales rate they the "custom" overhead costs get amortized over a multiple millions.

to 'fork' a minor subset of the Macs onto DIMMs won't help the ones that are on the semi-custom packages. That only lowers the amortization rates and increasing the cost. The fact that Apple sells 70+% laptops ( on semi-custom RAM ) that would mean taking a higher margin hit on most of what Apple sells in the Mac product ecosystem. There is relatively low rational business case for Apple taking that kind of self inflicted hit if they don't have to.


the relatively high performance iGPU pragmatically means that the "unified memory" can't vary widely and arbitrarily on bandwidth and capacity. There is a long shot that might get an "augment over a fixed bandwidth/capacity" threhold , but a "user knows better" memory configuration probably is off the tables as long as Apple is perusing maximal iGPU performance. That augment somewhat would break "unified memory" as the OS and hardware would have to segregate the "known attributes" RAM from the semi-random user added RAM. At that point it isn't "unified" is placement and/or paging/management dimension. More like pool A with attributes Z and pool B with attributes W . Can be 'unified' but by being non uniform it is more complex hardware and software wise. (more work and expense for Apple ).


The notion that Apple has to search the lowest common denomiator, general parts bins at 4-5 competiting memory suppliers and choose various random cheapest commodity parts to get their bill of material costs under control isn't firmly grounded in the unit volumes that Apple operates at. They often push common components across a product line to get economies of scale pricing for parts that have to meet Apple's specs as opposed to Apple adjusting their systems to meet the commodity specs.

This means if you buy a bottom of the line Mac then there will be headroom to grow the unified memory footprint easily. Feels like Apple will be onto a winner with it.

I know many users want that to be true ( more end user control), but that is detached from pricing pressures for Apple bill of material parts. Those two parties are not shopping at anywhere near the same volume levels.

 

[PsykX]

The only possible case would be that you might be able to buy an entire SoC through the new repair program.

But then again, we don't know how this program will work.

• Will they ask for the serial number of your broken product ?
• Will they ask you to prove which part is broken ?
• Will they limit you to buy only parts from the original configuration that you bought ?
• Will they allow you to buy compatible parts that are different than your original configuration ? (previous question, worded differently)

No matter what happens, I don't think it would be really beneficial to buy an entire SoC just to maximize the RAM. Apple will make sure to price this upgrade so that it is not justified to do it.

 

[deconstruct60]

Why do people keep insisting that the unified RAM is part of the M1 silicon? It is not. It is part of the SOC package that is all. The RAM chips are separate silicon.

Apple is going to have to find a solution for the Mac Pro because that audience expects user upgradeable RAM.

Simple solution for Apple there is to just not call it a "Mac Pro". A "Mac Next" or "Mac Max" or "Mac MultiMax" or just something else. But could do a "switch' from the Mac Pro 2013 paradigm where swap out RAM DIMMs for 2-3 open slots in a "trade" and still label it "Mac Pro". That way wouldn't necessarily carry too many expectations they don't want to meet.


The hard core "old school" folks in that market also expect 3rd party GPU drivers and those probably aren't coming either. There is no "Apple has to" or "Apple gotta" make every possible Mac Pro 2008-2012 100% happy if there is substantive uplift in the CPU and/or GPU performance per watt of the system. A decent number of folks will just take the faster system and make money with it

 

[deconstruct60]

No, you folks are thinking about it the old way. This hardware industry is moving to a licensing model where HW vendors ship one single entity which has hardware licenses to enable additional hardware features. In effect, Apple will always ship maximum configs but you'll only be licensed to use the version you bought. You can buy additional hardware licenses to enable more cores, more memory, more storage.

There is no way that meets your original thread post criteria of "cheaper to manufacture " for any substantive variation of storage and/or RAM capacities seen across the historical Mac product market ecosystem.

the current systems range from 8GB - 1,500GB of memory. No way the bill of materials for 1,500GB of RAM is lower than selling a system with 128GB . Spanning two orders of magnitude is a huge zone.

That "variability" capacity on already installed demand only works with relatively constrained zone. Something like maybe a 2-4x multiple in capacity and count. 10x or 100x times isn't going to lead to lower manufacturing costs at all. Nor will it lead to lower end user costs if tried ( as the stuff getting that didn't immediately would be paid for anyway. Folks pointing at IBM Power and Mainframes.... you're paying upfront for that "hidden" stuff on baseline market up. It is more just "more markup" when turn the pre-deployed stuff "on". )

This is how the industry is going and I expect to see some form of Apple hardware licensing scheme to occur in the near term.

Not the consumer products industry. Nor single user workstation.