Next-generation Apple Silicon 'M4' arrives, achieving AI processing performance that exceeds that of other companies' NPUs

During the event held by Apple on May 7, 2024, the next-generation Apple Silicon model, the ' M4 ', was announced. The M4 will also be installed in the iPad Pro announced at the same time.

Apple Announces M4 Chip - Apple (Japan)
https://www.apple.com/jp/newsroom/2024/05/apple-introduces-m4-chip/

Apple Event - Apple (Japan)
https://www.apple.com/jp/apple-events/

It seems that the leap to the next generation of Apple silicon was necessary for the new iPad Pro.

Therefore, the M4 was announced at the same time as the new iPad Pro.

The M4 is said to be a model that represents a major evolution of Apple Silicon.

The M4 is designed using second generation 3 nanometer technology.

It also features a new display engine.

This delivers incredible accuracy, color and brightness.

The CPU has four high-performance cores and six high-efficiency cores, all equipped with next-generation ML accelerators.

This makes the CPU performance up to 50% faster than the M2 in the previous generation iPad Pro.

The next-generation 10-core GPU architecture brings powerful features like Dynamic Caching, and for the first time on iPad, hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing.

Thanks to this high-performance GPU, you can easily play games such as Diablo Immortal.

Delivers up to 4x faster performance than the M2.

Performance per watt remains industry leading, while the M4 consumes just half the power to deliver the same performance as the M2.

Compared to the latest PC chips found in other companies' thin and light notebooks, the M4 consumes about a quarter of the power for the same performance.

The Neural Engine, a processor for accelerating AI processing, known in the industry as an NPU, is the most powerful Apple has ever made.

It can process an astounding 38 trillion calculations per second, which is 60 times faster than the original Neural Engine in the A11 Bionic.

This means that in Final Cut Pro you can isolate a subject from a background in 4K video with just a tap.

It is said to have performance superior to any other AI-equipped NPU made by other companies.

Below is an image summarizing the performance of the M4. The unified memory bandwidth is 120GB/s.

It is being touted that the M4 will further widen the power gap between the iPad Pro and similar devices.

In addition, the M4 is said to have significantly improved thermal performance compared to the M3.