Apple partner TSMC to mass produce 10nm chips by early 2017, on pace to beat Intel

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 88
    wood1208wood1208 Posts: 2,905member
    Unless physics/Moore's law cooperate, 10nm process is 2017 mass production story and that is iphone 7S, Galaxy S8 time frame. Same time embedded E-SIM and usb 3.1 type C thunderbolt 3 lightening connector will kick-in.
  • Reply 42 of 88
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    melgross wrote: »
    Everyone who has a good process technology will be on an even footing, and it will just be efficiency of production, and yield that will separate the good from the bad. And there, Intel holds the lead now.

    Sounds like the end of the bleeding edge. Perfect time for Apple to establish their own fab. Pretty sure Intel, Samsung, TSMC and other chipmakers all rely on wafer makers and fab tools produced by others. Yes, they own the ultimate details around the final part of the fab process where much of the current magic happens, but not the whole manufacturing chain. Remember when Apple first started milling MacBook Pro unibody cases and tied up C&C machine supplies for years? And everyone thought they were nuts and wouldn't be able to scale or make the process cost effective? Underestimate Apple at your peril if you compete with them, if rely on them in one area while competing with them in another.

    I don't think it's a matter of if Apple sets up their own fab, but a matter of when. Within 5 years, at most, I'd wager within three years some unknown newcomer with suspiciously deep pockets is going to start making waves. Will be fun to watch for.
  • Reply 43 of 88
    misamisa Posts: 827member
    netrox wrote: »
    Intel announced it will delay the 10nm process until the middle of 2017. That is NOT a good sign.

    Intel is delaying a lot of chips lately and I am suspecting that Apple is losing its patience and will probably release a Mac with its ARM chips which has shown to be extremely efficient and powerful.

    Not bloody likely any time soon.

    People keep thinking this, but you're looking at two different power profiles and how threads scale.

    Here's a clue... doubling the cores available at half the speed of the previous model, results in everything running twice as slow.

    THAT is why we won't see it. Apples low-power 2 watt ARM parts have to have the same performance as a 95 watt Intel processor before there's even a contest.
  • Reply 44 of 88
    solipsismysolipsismy Posts: 5,099member
    misa wrote: »
    Apples low-power 2 watt ARM parts have to have the same performance as a 95 watt Intel processor before there's even a contest.

    Can you clarify that, because it reads like you're saying that needs to have a chip with a 2W TDP at the same performance as an Intel chip with a 95W TDP before it's viable. I don't see how that makes any sense.
  • Reply 45 of 88
    grkm3grkm3 Posts: 30member
    misa wrote: »
    Not bloody likely any time soon.

    People keep thinking this, but you're looking at two different power profiles and how threads scale.

    Here's a clue... doubling the cores available at half the speed of the previous model, results in everything running twice as slow.

    THAT is why we won't see it. Apples low-power 2 watt ARM parts have to have the same performance as a 95 watt Intel processor before there's even a contest.

    I guess you have not looked into arms next CPU cores the a72s that will be out end of this year.60% increase instruction per clock over the a57 found in the gs6.

    They are claiming broadwell performance at 75% less power consumption.

    Intel is worried about this because a 60% ipc increase in just one year is insane
    http://www.vrworld.com/2015/04/27/arms-cortex-a72-to-rival-intel-core-m-cpu/
  • Reply 46 of 88
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    josha wrote: »
    Because the new 5c is only one week old, that battery life is obviously it's norm.

    Battery life for my 5 was fine. Perhaps, since it's new, the battery in your 5c is defective.
  • Reply 47 of 88
    joshajosha Posts: 901member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by melgross View Post



    Battery life for my 5 was fine. Perhaps, since it's new, the battery in your 5c is defective.

    What would you call fine for your 5's battery life?

     

    It's difficult to quantify battery life, plus what would Apple use to say a battery is defective?

     

    Just based on my weeks work with it I'd say it's battery life is about the same as my 4.5 yr old 4,

    which is about 50% of the battery life of the 4 when new.

    I know my 4 had/has excellent battery life.

  • Reply 48 of 88
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    josha wrote: »
    What would you call fine for your 5's battery life?

    It's difficult to quantify battery life, plus what would Apple use to say a battery is defective?

    Just based on my weeks work with it I'd say it's battery life is about the same as my 4.5 yr old 4,
    which is about 50% of the battery life of the 4 when new.
    <span style="font-size:16px;line-height:1.4em;">I know my 4 had/has excellent battery life.</span>

    I would use it all day, and by late evening, say 10pm, the battery would be at about 20%. But that would vary according to what I had been doing.

    My 6+, on the other hand, has outstanding battery life. I rarely need to recharge more than once every two days.
  • Reply 49 of 88
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    docno42 wrote: »


    Sounds like the end of the bleeding edge. Perfect time for Apple to establish their own fab. Pretty sure Intel, Samsung, TSMC and other chipmakers all rely on wafer makers and fab tools produced by others. Yes, they own the ultimate details around the final part of the fab process where much of the current magic happens, but not the whole manufacturing chain. Remember when Apple first started milling MacBook Pro unibody cases and tied up C&C machine supplies for years? And everyone thought they were nuts and wouldn't be able to scale or make the process cost effective? Underestimate Apple at your peril if you compete with them, if rely on them in one area while competing with them in another.

    I don't think it's a matter of if Apple sets up their own fab, but a matter of when. Within 5 years, at most, I'd wager within three years some unknown newcomer with suspiciously deep pockets is going to start making waves. Will be fun to watch for.

    I don't think Apple wants its own fab any more than they do manufacturing lines for their devices. When you have your own fab, you're responsible for every step. You've got to fill that fab, and 14nm fabs cost over $8 billion, with estimates for 10nm fabs at over $10 billion. Then there is the work force, and maintenance, etc. It's just easier to go to a company that doing that already. It also takes years to get this right. A new fab won't be competitive until the next process node is here. I doubt Apple wants that.

    I'd prefer if Apple went to Intel. Intel's already said that they would be interested.
  • Reply 50 of 88
    joshajosha Posts: 901member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by melgross View Post

     
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by JoshA View Post



    What would you call fine for your 5's battery life?



    It's difficult to quantify battery life, plus what would Apple use to say a battery is defective?



    Just based on my weeks work with it I'd say it's battery life is about the same as my 4.5 yr old 4,

    which is about 50% of the battery life of the 4 when new.

    I know my 4 had/has excellent battery life.




    I would use it all day, and by late evening, say 10pm, the battery would be at about 20%. But that would vary according to what I had been doing.



    My 6+, on the other hand, has outstanding battery life. I rarely need to recharge more than once every two days.

    I haven't come close to using my iPhone 4 or 5c all day.  I have a desktop Mac for that.

    My 5c battery just ended at 3pm today with an auto shutdown.  It was 3 days, about 2 full hrs each day for 6 hrs total.

  • Reply 51 of 88
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    josha wrote: »
    I haven't come close to using my iPhone 4 or 5c all day.  I have a desktop Mac for that.
    My 5c battery just ended at 3pm today with an auto shutdown.  It was 3 days, about 2 full hrs each day for 6 hrs total.

    It seems as though something is wrong then. It shouldn't do that. I would take it in.
  • Reply 52 of 88
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    solipsismy wrote: »
    Can you clarify that, because it reads like you're saying that needs to have a chip with a 2W TDP at the same performance as an Intel chip with a 95W TDP before it's viable. I don't see how that makes any sense.

    I think what he's saying is what I've been saying. It's been shown that a chip that's emulating another chip needs to be five times more powerful in order to run software at the same apparent speed. We don't need that (yet) for iOS, but would for OS X. There is a way partly around that, but whether Apple is interested or not, is another story.
  • Reply 53 of 88
    solipsismysolipsismy Posts: 5,099member
    melgross wrote: »
    I think what he's saying is what I've been saying. It's been shown that a chip that's emulating another chip needs to be five times more powerful in order to run software at the same apparent speed. We don't need that (yet) for iOS, but would for OS X. There is a way partly around that, but whether Apple is interested or not, is another story.

    1) I can see how 5x could be an average for emulation based on known averages, but your statements as though that's some hard and fast rule.

    2) why would that be the case for OS X? We're not talking about Emulating OS X for Intel over ARM, or running apps compiled for Intel, we're talking about OS X and Mac App Store apps designed to run on ARM. Why would it take 5x the power to match the performance?
  • Reply 54 of 88
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    solipsismy wrote: »
    1) I can see how 5x could be an average for emulation based on known averages, but your statements as though that's some hard and fast rule.

    2) why would that be the case for OS X? We're not talking about Emulating OS X for Intel over ARM, or running apps compiled for Intel, we're talking about OS X and Mac App Store apps designed to run on ARM. Why would it take 5x the power to match the performance?

    Five times is the number I see used when I read about it. Obviously it's not exact.

    While Apple would rewrite OS X to run on ARM, and some of Apple's apps would be rewritten as well, the reality is that almost no one else would bother, so small developers, with fairly simple apps likely would. But do you really think that Microsoft and Adobe would rewrite their massive software just to run on Apple's least powerful machines? I highly doubt that. And that's just some. There's a lot of complex software that would never get rewriten, all of that would need to run under emulation. So the ARM chip would need to be vastly powerful. That's not going to happen.

    We've discussed this situation numerous times over the last few years. Right before Apple came out with the A8 I said that I hoped that they would stick to two cores. They did for the phone, but as we know, for the A8x they went to three cores. I was very disappointed at that. I much preferred the idea of bigger, more powerful cores instead, which they could have done,

    The reason I was disappointed was because if Apple had any interest at all in having an ARM based Macbook, this pretty much ended it. At least for the near future. Why? Because Apple has had a lot of experience using two CPUs in their machines over the years. Given the low power draw of even the A8x, they could have taken two two core versions, and used them together. A small amount of circuitry would have sufficed to make that possible. Having four pretty powerful cores, and double the GPU hardware would make for a pretty formidable machine. But using six cores isn't really useful in a low end consumer computer. Almost no software would make good use of six less powerful cores.

    That would be pretty good for running a ported OS X and ported apps. We would have a machine, according to my numbers, that would run at least as well as the new Macbook.

    But there is something else they could do, if they are really interested. It's been determined that a small number of functions in a chip are causing 80% of the emulation slowdowns. Those functions need to be run in software, which is terrible. But, Intel doesn't own these functions. If Apple wanted to, they could add those functions to their ARM chip for use with OS X and software. The OS could determine when one of these functions were needed, and instead if them being run in software, they would be directed to the hardware functions on the chips. That would result in just a very small delay. If Apple really wanted to run OS X and apps, this would solve most of the problems. A dual chip four core processor with double the graphics, with problematic emulated functions run in hardware.

    But otherwise, I just don't see it happening.
  • Reply 55 of 88
    solipsismysolipsismy Posts: 5,099member
    [quote name="melgross" url="/t/187250/apple-partner-tsmc-to-mass-produce-10nm-chips-by-early-2017-on-pace-to-beat-intel/40#post_2752677"]While Apple would rewrite OS X to run on ARM, and some of Apple's apps would be rewritten as well, the reality is that almost no one else would bother, so small developers, with fairly simple apps likely would.[/QUOTE]

    This wasn't an insurmountable task in all those other times Apple changed their architecture so I don't think it would be in the future.

    [QUOTE]But do you really think that Microsoft and Adobe would rewrite their massive software just to run on Apple's least powerful machines? I highly doubt that. And that's just some. There's a lot of complex software that would never get rewriten, all of that would need to run under emulation. So the ARM chip would need to be vastly powerful. That's not going to happen.[/QUOTE]

    You seem to be looking at this as an all-or-nothing scenario. In the past it was, because Apple had hit a dead end with their current architecture, but today it wouldn't be about replacing Intel with ARM, but rather including a low-powered, lightweight, and low-cost ARM-based Mac (or Mac-like "PC"). This would be an introductory level machine. It would not have to have access to Office for Mac, Adobe CC apps, or any other large, complex app. I would even need to have Xcode! We're talking about a sub-$700 Mac (or Mac-like "PC") that gets email, internet access, some basic word processing, spreadsheet, and other basic apps.
  • Reply 56 of 88
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    solipsismy wrote: »
    This wasn't an insurmountable task in all those other times Apple changed their architecture so I don't think it would be in the future.
    You seem to be looking at this as an all-or-nothing scenario. In the past it was, because Apple had hit a dead end with their current architecture, but today it wouldn't be about replacing Intel with ARM, but rather including a low-powered, lightweight, and low-cost ARM-based Mac (or Mac-like "PC"). This would be an introductory level machine. It would not have to have access to Office for Mac, Adobe CC apps, or any other large, complex app. I would even need to have Xcode! We're talking about a sub-$700 Mac (or Mac-like "PC") that gets email, internet access, some basic word processing, spreadsheet, and other basic apps.

    I don't agree. There is no way that Apple would, or could, add a "Mac" that didn't run OS X software in its entirety, within the limitations of the power of the device. That means that the latest Macbook, which is considered to be underpowered by many, can still run most everything. What it can't run is software that people wouldn't buy such a machine for. But by "not run", I mean that it can't run it well.

    But to say that someone couldn't run Office, or other widely used software such as that, would kill the machine before it ever came to market.

    Apple has a computer that does what you're talking about already. It's called an iPad, and it workes very well for that purpose, as well as others.
  • Reply 57 of 88
    sphericspheric Posts: 2,544member
    solipsismy wrote: »
    We're talking about a sub-$700 Mac (or Mac-like "PC") that gets email, internet access, some basic word processing, spreadsheet, and other basic apps.

    We have a winning strategist!

    http://www.apple.com/ipad
  • Reply 58 of 88
    solipsismysolipsismy Posts: 5,099member
    spheric wrote: »
    We have a winning strategist!

    http://www.apple.com/ipad

    That doesn't run Mac OS X, nor does it have other features of a desktop-grade OS. You may find that iOS for iPad is all you'll ever need for your computing needs but most people here do need something more versatile, which is why Macs will not be going away.
  • Reply 59 of 88
    solipsismysolipsismy Posts: 5,099member
    [quote name="melgross" url="/t/187250/apple-partner-tsmc-to-mass-produce-10nm-chips-by-early-2017-on-pace-to-beat-intel/40#post_2753498"]That means that the latest Macbook, which is considered to be underpowered by many, can still run most everything. [/QUOTE]

    What can't it run? I bought one and zero trouble running anything within the scope of its target market. Even Xcode, which is outside of its market, ran fine.

    [QUOTE]What it can't run is software that people wouldn't buy such a machine for. But by "not run", I mean that it can't run it well.[/QUOTE]

    I have no idea what this means. Are you saying that the built-in OS X apps wouldn't run well? Are you saying that Mac App Store apps wouldn't run well? What measure do you use to come to that conclusion? I tested one for two weeks as a my sole machine and it was brilliant.

    [QUOTE]But to say that someone couldn't run Office, or other widely used software such as that, would kill the machine before it ever came to market.[/QUOTE]

    Why can't it run office apps? Why would this sort of budget Mac require MS to have Office for Mac in their Mac App Store with an ARM port ready to go or it will kill this device? What percentage of users looking for a budget mac require MS Office over another office suite solution?

    [QUOTE]Apple has a computer that does what you're talking about already. It's called an iPad, and it workes very well for that purpose, as well as others.[/QUOTE]

    1) No, the iPad does not run desktop OS.

    2) BTW, all your forced reasons as to why budget Mac would fail were all shattered when you used the iPad as proof of anything since the iPad is, by your standard, anemic, and did have MS Office until recently.

    3) Whether Apple goes that route is an entirely different story, but you're being foolish to think that ARM is incapable of ever running a desktop OS sufficiently.
  • Reply 60 of 88
    sphericspheric Posts: 2,544member
    solipsismy wrote: »
    That doesn't run Mac OS X, nor does it have other features of a desktop-grade OS. You may find that iOS for iPad is all you'll ever need for your computing needs but most people here do need something more versatile, which is why Macs will not be going away.

    That's not what you wrote. Your requirements, as stated, were "a sub-$700 Mac (or Mac-like "PC") that gets email, internet access, some basic word processing, spreadsheet, and other basic apps."

    iPad fulfills all of those criteria.

    Of course the Mac isn't going away. It will continue to be there for the heavy lifting, and it will continue to be powered for the heavy lifting. There is no reason to switch hardware platforms at this time. Intel is doing great.
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