Apple's M1 chip is Steve Jobs' 'last bet'



On November 11, 2020, Apple announced the 'M1', Apple's first proprietary chip for the Mac. The M1 chip

has surprised the world with its high performance, but tech journalist Om Malik said, 'The M1 chip is Steve Jobs' last bet.' Malik argues why the M1 chip has important implications for Apple and is also considered a turning point for Apple.

Steve Jobs's last gambit: Apple's M1 Chip – On my Om
https://om.co/2020/11/17/why-m1-chip-by-apple-matters/

In an announcement, Apple said about the M1 chip, 'It has twice as long a battery life as the previous generation Mac, but has up to 3.5 times CPU performance, up to 6 times GPU performance, and up to 15 times machine learning speed.' Said. Due to the high performance of the M1 chip claimed by Apple, there were many people who suspected that it was an exaggeration.

Introducing the first Apple Silicon 'M1' chip, equipped with the world's fastest CPU manufactured by 5nm process-GIGAZINE



The M1 chip is a system-on-chip (SoC) that combines many technologies such as CPU, GPU, memory, and machine learning in a single integrated circuit on a single chip. Malik said these M1 chips realize the vision of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

Founded by Jobs, Apple launched the first Macintosh in 1984, 23 years before the first iPhone was released. But when personal computers were at their peak, the combination of Microsoft and Intel became mainstream, and the Mac didn't dominate the market. Due to the dependency between Microsoft and Intel, Apple will have IBM and Motorola chips with numerically inferior performance on the Mac. Later, Apple adopted Intel chips, further expanding Intel's market share.

From his own experience, Jobs created the iPhone, thinking that 'Apple must create and control everything in order to remain competitive.' For the iPhone, Apple develops all of the software, hardware, user experience chips, or what Jobs calls the 'whole widget.' Apple's 'A' series chips are included in the iPhone 4 and the original iPad, and since then, the chips have become more powerful and evolved to perform many tasks. It is said that the A series chips were able to improve performance without increasing power consumption because Apple controlled the entire widget and could adjust the balance of the hardware, software and chips.



On the other hand, for many years, at Apple, only the Mac was unable to realize Jobs' idea of 'controlling the entire widget.'

The appearance of the M1 chip means that Apple has fully realized 'control of the entire widget' for the first time nine years after Jobs died in 2011.

Although the M1 chip is much more powerful than the iPhone and iPad chips, its structure is about the same. In other words, on one chip, various components and

DRAM that require access to the CPU, GPU, image processor, and neural engine are mounted, so the entire chip can instantly access data across multiple components. It can be used and interconnected.



This mechanism can reduce battery consumption and improve performance. Some analysts predict that the introduction of such an M1 chip could make Apple a further leap forward.

Malik sees Apple's rival as

Qualcomm , a well-established SoC series, rather than AMD or Intel.

Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, points out that the specs commonly used in the industry do not accurately indicate the actual task level. 'It's not the gigahertz or megahertz that matters, but what the customer is getting from it,' said Johnny Slouge, Apple's senior vice president of hardware technology.

For example, the M1 chip can build a high-end integrated graphics engine and combine it with a higher-performance UMA to do more than a single GPU-powered machine. In modern computers, graphics are made up of a lot of data movement, and computers with a single GPU are deprived of performance by such data movement.



'It's hard to put a transistor on a piece of silicon anymore,' Federighi said, showing that Apple's way of controlling the entire widget will push the boundaries of hardware.

While inheriting Jobs' idea of 'controlling the entire widget', Apple is continuing to develop hardware and software with an eye on the future three years from now.

'We are developing custom silicone that fits perfectly into the product and how it is used. When we design a chip, it takes three to four years, but Craig and I are in the same room. We sit down, define what we need to deliver, and work hand in hand. We can't do this for Intel, AMD, or anyone else, 'Slouge said.

in Software,   Hardware, Posted by darkhorse_log