Which SoC for first consumer ARM-based Macs?

[Kostask]

There are a lot of good reasons for Apple to move away from Intel, but one of the major ones is that they can now leverage any improvements on the iPhone SoCs onto the Mac, much as they have for the iPad and iPad Pro. They generate a new CPU or GPU core for the iPhone, and use that core on the iPad and Mac. Same goes for some of the accelerators and other functional blocks. Much is made of the T2 chip in the iMac for security; that chip is essentially a lot of the functional blocks of the iPhone SoC (Touch ID and Secure Enclave) that could never be incorporated into an Intel CPU. You can let the volume of the iPhone carry the R&D costs for all the improvements and only add incremental R&D costs for Mac specific blocks.

The new Mac SoCs will be multiples of the iPhone CPUs and GPUs, with the special accelerators added as needed. So you use 4 of dual core (as used on the iPhone) CPU blocks, 1 of the 4 efficiency core blocks, the Security block (equivalent to the T2 chip), 8 GPUs (the A14 generation GPU), a couple of accelerator blocks (front camera block), and the hypervisor CPU (new to the Mac SoC). You leave off the touch control block (Mac won't have a touch screen), Face ID camera controller (unless the Macs get Face ID), and the rear camera block. Clock speeds may be higher due to more battery power being available, and greater cooling potential of a Mac laptop case vs. an iPhone or iPad case.

 

[iPadified]

There are a lot of good reasons for Apple to move away from Intel, but one of the major ones is that they can now leverage any improvements on the iPhone SoCs onto the Mac, much as they have for the iPad and iPad Pro. They generate a new CPU or GPU core for the iPhone, and use that core on the iPad and Mac. Same goes for some of the accelerators and other functional blocks. Much is made of the T2 chip in the iMac for security; that chip is essentially a lot of the functional blocks of the iPhone SoC (Touch ID and Secure Enclave) that could never be incorporated into an Intel CPU. You can let the volume of the iPhone carry the R&D costs for all the improvements and only add incremental R&D costs for Mac specific blocks.

The new Mac SoCs will be multiples of the iPhone CPUs and GPUs, with the special accelerators added as needed. So you use 4 of dual core (as used on the iPhone) CPU blocks, 1 of the 4 efficiency core blocks, the Security block (equivalent to the T2 chip), 8 GPUs (the A14 generation GPU), a couple of accelerator blocks (front camera block), and the hypervisor CPU (new to the Mac SoC). You leave off the touch control block (Mac won't have a touch screen), Face ID camera controller (unless the Macs get Face ID), and the rear camera block. Clock speeds may be higher due to more battery power being available, and greater cooling potential of a Mac laptop case vs. an iPhone or iPad case.

That is exactly how it will play out to maximize the economy of scale. The iPhone is the locomotive and the rest is just tweaks and reassembles to fit another computing platform. What an irony that the future Mac Pro is just a scaled iPhone.

 

[Waragainstsleep]

It makes no sense to reinvent the wheel, so plenty of tech and experience from the iPhone SoC will make it into the Mac Pro but it may in fact be the case that Apple has been researching bigger CPUs and scaling them down for iPhone all along. Where appropriate anyway. Like in Formula One, the bleeding edge is used for top level performance but loads of the innovations eventually scale down to consumer vehicles.

 

[sublunar]

All Apple Silicon Macs are going to have more powerful SoC’s than the DTK. That is lowest common denominator of app development to target for Mac SoC’s. That, you can bank on. Why in the world would they put a lesser SoC in a Macbook than in an iPad Pro, let alone an iPhone, that have much more limited thermal envelopes??? (Typing this on said 11” iPad Pro)

Also, M1 & M2 is already taken as the name of the motion coprocessor line on the A series SoC...

You're forgetting the ultraportable market that values battery life over performance, although the iPhone CPU right now has plenty of performance up against similar TDP Intel.

I take you point with the co-processor. Plenty of other letters in the alphabet though and the name of the SoC is for Phil Schiller to decide.

And renaming the Apple SoC to something other than A14x is precisely what I've been advocating - to sidestep unfair comparisons with 'mere' iPhones or budget iPads. I daresay that the actual Apple SoC will be capable of sustained performance if the cooling situation allows but let's not forget that the Macbook could well be fan-less - and the MBA fan surely looks like it's there just in case rather than being perpetually on.

This would make for a very civilised Mac experience.

 

[MyopicPaideia]

You're forgetting the ultraportable market that values battery life over performance, although the iPhone CPU right now has plenty of performance up against similar TDP Intel.

I take you point with the co-processor. Plenty of other letters in the alphabet though and the name of the SoC is for Phil Schiller to decide.

And renaming the Apple SoC to something other than A14x is precisely what I've been advocating - to sidestep unfair comparisons with 'mere' iPhones or budget iPads. I daresay that the actual Apple SoC will be capable of sustained performance if the cooling situation allows but let's not forget that the Macbook could well be fan-less - and the MBA fan surely looks like it's there just in case rather than being perpetually on.

This would make for a very civilised Mac experience.

I’m not forgetting that segment at all. There isn’t going to be a ASi 12” Macbook in 2020 - that‘s the point. This leak is total bs. Maybe a MBA, but the first one will more than likely be the 13” MBP.

Apple has to completely smoke the Intel Chips out of the gate, which is why the original and credible rumor of a 12 CPU core (with core architecture based on the A14 CPU and GPU core designs, yes) 13” MBP in a largely unaltered design still makes more sense as well.

 

[Waragainstsleep]

I still say if you're going to refresh the case designs, when you change CPU architecture (and possibly model names) is when you're going to do it. No point making an AS MacBook Pro for a generation or two then switching it to AS SuperBook Pro or whatever.

 

[MyopicPaideia]

I still say if you're going to refresh the case designs, when you change CPU architecture (and possibly model names) is when you're going to do it. No point making an AS MacBook Pro for a generation or two then switching it to AS SuperBook Pro or whatever.

Hmmm...no rumors flying around, not even unreliable ones, about model name changes or redesigns for 2020. Just the hard fact that Apple is releasing its first ASi Macs in 2020. Expect this initial release to be all about performance per watt domination vs Intel, eye opening GPU performance vs current Mac offerings, and next level ecosystem/platform integration.

The is the bar-setting release, 2021 and 2022 are going to be the years for real differentiation in device design and feature sets.

 

[Waragainstsleep]

Hmmm...no rumors flying around, not even unreliable ones, about model name changes or redesigns for 2020. Just the hard fact that Apple is releasing its first ASi Macs in 2020. Expect this initial release to be all about performance per watt domination vs Intel, eye opening GPU performance vs current Mac offerings, and next level ecosystem/platform integration.

The is the bar-setting release, 2021 and 2022 are going to be the years for real differentiation in device design and feature sets.

Last set of name changes came with an architecture change. The thing about Apple rumours is most of them don't originate with Apple. The rumours about which models are coming next are mostly based on leaks from elsewhere in the supply chain. Big suppliers like LG and Samsung who Apple can't lock down the way they do with smaller or more dependent suppliers. LG and Samsung are among display suppliers, displays indicate what models are coming, though analysts won't necessarily appreciate the difference between a 13.3" panel for a MacBook Air and a Pro (assuming their is a difference). They might get battery specs ahead of time, and until now they could speculate to an extent based on Intel's announcements (if not their roadmap) but they get very little in the way of case leaks or model names before devices are released. Not much before anyway. I imagine any new product names would be a very closely guarded secret at Apple and at the same time, they have no need to tell anyone who doesn't know and risk such information leaking.

They have even been known to leak fake devices on purpose in the past. Something even easier to do if you're leaking something that looks identical to the previous models. To me it doesn't make any sense to make a big internal and external change separately. Hence the rumour that the next (last) Intel iMac won't be the redesigned ones that have been previously rumoured. Not that you could safely fit a toasty i9 in a super thin new iMac chassis anyway.

 

[iPadified]

It makes no sense to reinvent the wheel, so plenty of tech and experience from the iPhone SoC will make it into the Mac Pro but it may in fact be the case that Apple has been researching bigger CPUs and scaling them down for iPhone all along. Where appropriate anyway. Like in Formula One, the bleeding edge is used for top level performance but loads of the innovations eventually scale down to consumer vehicles.

It is clear that the performance per power ratio is pushed from the mobile and not the other way around.

 

[Waragainstsleep]

It certainly does look that way but you never know, maybe they've ben testing bigger Mac CPUs in house for years. I'd be fascinated to find out but I doubt we'll hear about it for a long time yet.

 

[leman]

It is clear that the performance per power ratio is pushed from the mobile and not the other way around.

It certainly does look that way but you never know, maybe they've ben testing bigger Mac CPUs in house for years. I'd be fascinated to find out but I doubt we'll hear about it for a long time yet.

I believe that this aspect of Apple Silicon (its roots being in mobile) is what will allow them to excel on desktop. They have vast data on how complex circuits behave in constricted environments, they have advanced power gating tech, they have excellent power management and work scheduling algorithms (decades of software and OS design experience don’t hurt here). Let’s not forget that modern 86 CPUs got so fast because Intel and AMD were applying lessons learned in the mobile space.

 

[Waragainstsleep]

I believe that this aspect of Apple Silicon (its roots being in mobile) is what will allow them to excel on desktop. They have vast data on how complex circuits behave in constricted environments, they have advanced power gating tech, they have excellent power management and work scheduling algorithms (decades of software and OS design experience don’t hurt here). Let’s not forget that modern 86 CPUs got so fast because Intel and AMD were applying lessons learned in the mobile space.

Now that I think it through, they did start down this silicon road by buying P.A. Semiback in 2008. They specialised in low power chips. And they weren't the last, only just heard of this one from 2018:

Apple buys part of chipmaker Dialog for $300 million

This is Apple’s biggest acquisition ever in terms of new headcount.

www.theverge.com

So yes, they started from the bottom. I still think they might end up with innovations trickling down from the high end eventually, but for now they are sensibly building from the bottom up.

 

[sublunar]

I’m not forgetting that segment at all. There isn’t going to be a ASi 12” Macbook in 2020 - that‘s the point. This leak is total bs. Maybe a MBA, but the first one will more than likely be the 13” MBP.

Apple has to completely smoke the Intel Chips out of the gate, which is why the original and credible rumor of a 12 CPU core (with core architecture based on the A14 CPU and GPU core designs, yes) 13” MBP in a largely unaltered design still makes more sense as well.

I don't doubt Apple's confidence with their silicon. They'll make absolutely sure that they have a wide margin of victory in the areas that matter. And FCPX and Logic performance is certainly one of interest alongside battery life and ability to run Rosetta 2 at reasonable pace without incompatibilities.

There's a good chance that the entire range ought to compete well with all Macbooks as raw GPU compute appears to be competitive for every 13" MacBook class Intel Iris Graphics CPU when compared with the A12z. The question mark remains over how Apple intend to compete with AMD over discrete GPU in the iMac and 16" MacBook Pro but they have at least a year to get that right.

Apple don't have to replace an existing 12" MacBook so there's no pressure on them to relaunch a discontinued form factor but they could still consider using a 'puny' iPhone CPU in the entry level MBA - which runs a 2 core/4 thread i3. Next year, they could launch a low power variant based on an A15 CPU next winter for example.

 

[iPadified]

Now that I think it through, they did start down this silicon road by buying P.A. Semiback in 2008. They specialised in low power chips. And they weren't the last, only just heard of this one from 2018:

Apple buys part of chipmaker Dialog for $300 million

This is Apple’s biggest acquisition ever in terms of new headcount.

www.theverge.com

So yes, they started from the bottom. I still think they might end up with innovations trickling down from the high end eventually, but for now they are sensibly building from the bottom up.

As in any development, this is a two way street and lessons learned are probably transferred both way. I would not be surprised if Apple worked with higher power desktop chips since A7.
However, it is more provocative to say that the Mac Pro chip will be a scaled iPhone chip . The irony is of course how much flack "iToys" has gotten from the Mac Pro hard liners throughout the years. Many still think the AS cannot scale to their precious Xeon/AMD Mac Pro. Who cares what sits inside if to does the job.

 

[Boil]

Many still think the AS cannot scale to their precious Xeon/AMD Mac Pro.

Where do I find these AMD Mac Pros...?!?

 

[iPadified]

Where do I find these AMD Mac Pros...?!?

OK OK, AMD Graphics.

 

[burgerrecords]

I want to get my prediction documented that I do not expect that there will be differences between the socs used in iMacs and MacBooks. That the difference will be form factor only.

 

[Waragainstsleep]

I'm starting to think there might eventually be some overlap between the SoC in a top end iMac and the low end Mac Pro.

 

[boyorion]

I’m betting this.

Interested to see what grades there will be or whether processors will be configurable per model or whether it’s just storage and RAM and maybe graphics now.

This is the question I have. Is it truly an appliance now or will it have any hint of its tinkering past still in it. I think it would be sad if it didn’t but it’s sort of one more step toward a world where the tech is so amazing that it seems like magic.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I feel like the difference between "A14 variant" and "new SoC customized for Mac" is semantic at best. It's not like Apple puts a non-X/Z variant in an iPad Pro, or puts any variant beyond the one based for the iPhone into the iPad mini.

I believe that what's going into the Macs will likely be A14 based, but also be a whole new SoC customized for the Mac and not be something that will ALSO be present in an iPad. Though the relation between an SoC for the iPad Pro and one for, say, a MacBook Air could still be pretty close if Apple wants. Though, I'm hoping they don't hold back on the Air and actually give it something that makes it worthy of eclipsing the performance of any 13" Four-Port Intel MacBook Pro that has ever existed.

 

[burgerrecords]

Though the relation between an SoC for the iPad Pro and one for, say, a MacBook Air could still be pretty close if Apple wants.

I see little reason to believe Macbook air and IPad Pro won’t have the same soc at next iPad Pro update. Unless there are chip technologies that macOS needs that iOS doesn’t, that I’m unaware of?

 

[Yebubbleman]

I see little reason to believe Macbook air and IPad Pro won’t have the same soc at next iPad Pro update. Unless there are chip technologies that macOS needs that iOS doesn’t, that I’m unaware of?

No reason why they couldn't unless Apple wants a more powerful SoC to be powering macOS Big Sur, which would make sense (seeing as iPadOS is still hamstrung by many inherent iOS limitations).

 

[MrGunnyPT]

New SoC with new naming for sure.

I'm curious about the GPU performance without a doubt, out of the entire package

 

[thenewperson]

I see little reason to believe Macbook air and IPad Pro won’t have the same soc at next iPad Pro update. Unless there are chip technologies that macOS needs that iOS doesn’t, that I’m unaware of?

People have mentioned embedded hypervisor cores? Anyway both Craig Federighi and Johnny Srouji mentioned Macs would get a new family of SoCs so I'd assume even if we got exactly an A14X as a base, it would be called something else (and potentially have a bit more in it).

 

[Waragainstsleep]

Virtualisation Engine?
Rosetta Engine? (This one is just a core i3!!!)