Arm's new chip architecture will power future devices, possibly including Apple's

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in General Discussion
Chip designer Arm Ltd. has announced its new v9 architecture, a design that could eventually appear in the Apple Silicon powering future iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

Arm's new v9 architecture boosts AI, security, and performance
Arm's new v9 architecture boosts AI, security, and performance


The new Arm v9 focuses on three areas: performance, security, and machine learning (ML) capabilities. Arm says the design will provide more than a 30% CPU performance boost over the next two generations of mobile and infrastructure CPUs.

AI is another critical area Arm targeted with its v9 design. The architecture's new Scalable Vector Extension 2 (SVE2) technology will enhance ML and digital signal processing (DSP) for future devices.

Arm's SCE2 can improve processing for 5G systems, ML, voice AI assistants, and virtual and augmented reality. Apple's Arm-based chips include a Neural Engine that handles ML tasks, and the company is reportedly developing a mixed-reality headset and AR glasses.

Security is the third pillar of Arm's new design. Its Confidential Compute Architecture (CCA) "shields portions of code and data from access or modification while in-use, even from privileged software, by performing computation in a hardware-based secure environment."

The CCA will use a concept called Realms, a "region that is separate from both the secure and non-secure worlds." For example, Arm says a business application could use Realms to protect sensitive data from the rest of the system "while it is in-use, at rest, and in transit."

Apple's M1 chip, powering the latest Macs, uses an Arm design
Apple's M1 chip, powering the latest Macs, uses an Arm design


ARM says that the first devices using the v9 design will arrive by late 2021.

Chips based on the decade-old v8 design offer the best performance-per-watt in computing today. Arm-based chips power nearly every smartphone, along with many tablets and an increasing number of laptops.

Apple Silicon, which uses an Arm v8-based design, will soon power every Apple computing product. All iPhones and iPads use Apple Silicon chips, and the company is in a two-year transition that will end with all Macs running Apple's Arm-based silicon. The Arm-based M1 chip powers the latest MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini.

Nvidia is in the process of buying Arm Ltd. for a record-breaking $40 billion.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 74
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,241member
    Is Apple required to push their Apple developed ARM designs back to the main ARM design architecture? It appears v9 will include many of the ideas Apple has developed. 

    As for Nvidia buying Arm Ltd there better be a whole lot more investigation into how Nvidia will be allowed to control the architecture and its users before they’re allowed to buy them. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 74
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    rob53 said:
    Is Apple required to push their Apple developed ARM designs back to the main ARM design architecture? It appears v9 will include many of the ideas Apple has developed. 

    As for Nvidia buying Arm Ltd there better be a whole lot more investigation into how Nvidia will be allowed to control the architecture and its users before they’re allowed to buy them. 
    No. The architectural license Apple has allows them to design their own cores, which they do. They don’t have to give anyone anything from that work.
    godofbiscuitskillroyStrangeDaysgregoriusmd_2jas99Rayz2016aderutterwatto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 74
    mjtomlinmjtomlin Posts: 2,673member
    rob53 said:
    Is Apple required to push their Apple developed ARM designs back to the main ARM design architecture? It appears v9 will include many of the ideas Apple has developed. 

    As for Nvidia buying Arm Ltd there better be a whole lot more investigation into how Nvidia will be allowed to control the architecture and its users before they’re allowed to buy them. 

    They are not. All that is required is that Apple's implementation of ARM's v8 ISA remains backwards compatible with the v8 specs. Other than that, Apple is allowed to extend the ISA as needed and they are not required to push those extensions back to ARM.
    edited April 2021 Beatsgregoriusmd_2jas99watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 74
    cloudguycloudguy Posts: 323member
    Wait what? I thought Apple was an ARM Holdings co-founder, had a permanent architectural license and their own custom design for PCs that was radically different from - and better than - the small core design for embedded systems that the ARM pushes for Cortex-A for smartphones and the somewhat better (but still not very good) Marvell and N1 core designs that are used on servers (which again aren't very good as they constitute 3% of the market, forcing Amazon, Microsoft, Google etc. to also make their own core designs and causing Marvell, HP and most other ARM server vendors to drop out of the market leaving Ampere as the only player)? Even Fujitsu, who makes ARM supercomputers, relies on a custom design (a combination of the RISC license based on SPARC that they bought from Sun back in the day and things they licensed from ARM). 

    While the M1 chip has a single core score that rivals Intel Core i7 and i9, the best Cortex Core for PCs and mobile barely surpasses the Intel Pentium. (Qualcomm is hyping up the multicore score, but even there it takes 8 performance cores to merely rival the Geekbench 5 score for the quad core Intel i5). I thought that Apple having their own big core design that ARM Holdings can't come close to was why Nvidia's purchase of ARM Holdings is like "meh" for Apple as their custom CPU and GPU designs are much better - by several times - than Cortex, Mali (the ARM Holdings GPU) and even Nvidia (either their old GPU architecture or their new Ampere one) anyway.
    maclin3jas99muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 5 of 74
    cloudguycloudguy Posts: 323member
    rob53 said:
    Is Apple required to push their Apple developed ARM designs back to the main ARM design architecture? It appears v9 will include many of the ideas Apple has developed. 

    As for Nvidia buying Arm Ltd there better be a whole lot more investigation into how Nvidia will be allowed to control the architecture and its users before they’re allowed to buy them. 
    You are wrong on both counts.

    1. The v9 contains things that ARM developed independently that are inferior to Apple's tech.
    2. Apple WILL NOT be required to push their ARM designs back. First off, as a co-founder with a permanent architectural license, Apple is for all intents and purposes an independent entity here. Second, even if they weren't, the other ARM licensees like MediaTek, Huawei, Qualcomm and Samsung don't either. This is a real issue because for awhile both Samsung and Qualcomm were able to develop custom CPU cores that were significantly better tham ARM's generic CPU cores. (Samsung fell behind and gave up; Qualcomm's are only slightly better.) And Qualcomm's Adreno GPU design is MUCH BETTER than ARM Holdings' Mali. (The bad ARM GPUs are a major reason why Google uses Intel for Chromebooks. Samsung ditched Mali for an AMD GPU design. Nvidia's mobile GPU design - hardware and software - is much better also.) So if generic licensees like Qualcomm, Samsung and Nvidia aren't required to give up their IP to ARM Holdings there is no way that Apple - whose license is on far better terms - won't.

    Basically Nvidia buying ARM has nothing to do with Apple. Nvidia doesn't even want in on the CPU game anyway. They tried that already: they made CPUs for the original batch of Android devices. When companies abandoned them for the Qualcomm/Samsung/MediaTek trio they tried to manufacture and sell their own devices - the Nvidia Shield tablet and the Nvidia Shield set top box - but that failed also. Even the Nintendo Switch uses Nvidia CPU designs that are like 4 years old because Nvidia exited that market and never updated them. The Nintendo Switch Pro will have a slightly updated Tegra CPU, but it still won't use the latest ARM cores or the latest process. Nvidia buying ARM is all about cloud, edge and IoT stuff plus ML/AI stuff, and those are areas that an end user consumer hardware company like Apple only dabbles in.
    gregoriusmjas99willettspheric
  • Reply 6 of 74
    dk49dk49 Posts: 267member
    If ARM has its own AI engine now, what does it mean for Apple's Neural engine? Is it possible for Apple to completely discard ARMs AI engine in their processors or they will have to build theirs on top of ARMs? If yes then will it not break ARM's licence? 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 74
    I am pretty sure that Apple isn't using the existing SVE instructions in the v8 spec, so it's that much less likely they're at all interested in that in ARMv9.   Remember, the GPU that lives in the M1 and the A-series have little/nothing to do with the ARM ISA.  And then there's all the other IP that lives in the SoC:  the matrix processor, the Neural Engine, image & camera processors, etc., many of which contribute to what Apple calls "MLCompute" that, for lack of a better comparison, is analogous to CUDA in the context of TensorFlow. 

    Apple Silicon uses the same core instruction set (ISA) to ARM, and therefore the same core architecture, more or less, but it ends there. The rest is all Apple.  They do this because of their standing with ARM, their license with ARM, and the fact that they're not reselling ARM SoCs to third parties.  They have no need to be compliant for the purposes of off the shelf *anything*.
    killroyjas99watto_cobralibertyforall
  • Reply 8 of 74
    cloudguycloudguy Posts: 323member
    dk49 said:
    If ARM has its own AI engine now, what does it mean for Apple's Neural engine? Is it possible for Apple to completely discard ARMs AI engine in their processors or they will have to build theirs on top of ARMs? If yes then will it not break ARM's licence? 
    See above. Apple is an ARM Holdings co-founder. They have a perpetual architectural license. This allows them to design ARM cores and other IP that are completely different and separate from what ARM does. While they use the same general tech, they have as little to do with each other as does - say - Microsoft's Visual C++ and Apple's Objective C.
    jas99
  • Reply 9 of 74
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,241member
    cloudguy said:
    rob53 said:
    Is Apple required to push their Apple developed ARM designs back to the main ARM design architecture? It appears v9 will include many of the ideas Apple has developed. 

    As for Nvidia buying Arm Ltd there better be a whole lot more investigation into how Nvidia will be allowed to control the architecture and its users before they’re allowed to buy them. 
    You are wrong on both counts.

    How am I wrong? I asked a question then made a statement. Others have answered my question correctly, saying No. 
    jdb8167godofbiscuitselijahgsteven n.avon b7StrangeDaysCloudTalkinchiaRayz2016d_2
  • Reply 10 of 74
    larryjwlarryjw Posts: 1,031member
    rob53 said:
    Is Apple required to push their Apple developed ARM designs back to the main ARM design architecture? It appears v9 will include many of the ideas Apple has developed. 

    As for Nvidia buying Arm Ltd there better be a whole lot more investigation into how Nvidia will be allowed to control the architecture and its users before they’re allowed to buy them. 
    Since the article mentions devices coming at the end of 2021 will being using the new architecture, might it be safe to assume Apple has already incorporated those elements into their SoC, releasing their versions at year's end? 

    I can't image Apple and ARM not having continual conversations. This new version is not going to be a surprise to Apple engineers and their suppliers. 
    gregoriusmseanjwatto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 74
    mcdavemcdave Posts: 1,927member
    dk49 said:
    If ARM has its own AI engine now, what does it mean for Apple's Neural engine? Is it possible for Apple to completely discard ARMs AI engine in their processors or they will have to build theirs on top of ARMs? If yes then will it not break ARM's licence? 
    Nope. The Apple Neural Engine is only one AI accelerator for discreet AI work, they also have their own CPU vector/SIMD extension called AMX for in-flight AI work. I believe it uses proprietary SVE since the A13.

    This is my bone of contention with Cinebench as it ignores a TeraOp of SIMD compute from the AMX units. The M1 should be smashing all but ThreadRipper/Epyc on Cinebench but as it’s Embree renderer is controlled by Intel, that optimisation probably won’t happen.
    killroytenthousandthingsjdb8167watto_cobraspheric
  • Reply 12 of 74
    mcdavemcdave Posts: 1,927member
    Apple got Sherlocked by ARM, whatever next?
    williamlondontenthousandthings
  • Reply 13 of 74
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    rob53 said:
    Is Apple required to push their Apple developed ARM designs back to the main ARM design architecture? It appears v9 will include many of the ideas Apple has developed. 

    As for Nvidia buying Arm Ltd there better be a whole lot more investigation into how Nvidia will be allowed to control the architecture and its users before they’re allowed to buy them. 

    This has been a long standing question in my mind, that is how much cooperation is there between ARM and Apple.    I'm literally of the belief that Apple was a big factor in ARMs 64 bit architecture.

    As for the ARM / NVidia deal I think that is already done.   I"m not sure if it si a good thing for ARM long term, however NVIdia can bring a lot of resources to bare on on the 69 bit platform and hopefully drive it towards a more viable processor for builders of PC's.    As for Apple most likely they have a pretty air tight contract.   If Apple was worried they would be pretty loud about the buy out.
    killroywatto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 74
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    dk49 said:
    If ARM has its own AI engine now, what does it mean for Apple's Neural engine? Is it possible for Apple to completely discard ARMs AI engine in their processors or they will have to build theirs on top of ARMs? If yes then will it not break ARM's licence? 

    Long term I suspect what you will see is that Apple will focus a lot of effort on things outside of the ARM cores.    This will specifically be focused on high performance AI hardware.    In other words the ARM cores, at least for mainstream machines, will become a smaller portion of the entire SoC space allocation.
    killroywatto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 74
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    cloudguy said:
    dk49 said:
    If ARM has its own AI engine now, what does it mean for Apple's Neural engine? Is it possible for Apple to completely discard ARMs AI engine in their processors or they will have to build theirs on top of ARMs? If yes then will it not break ARM's licence? 
    See above. Apple is an ARM Holdings co-founder. They have a perpetual architectural license.
    The fact that they were an ARM Holdings co-founder is no longer relevant to anything, they sold (AFAIK) all their interests in ARM long ago, and have never had a controlling stake. The perpetual architectural license was acquired when Apple bought PA Semi in 2008. NVIDIA also has an architectural license, along with MS and Qualcomm, so there's no reason they couldn't match Apple's M1 CPU speeds - except their engineers aren't good enough, apparently. So not really sure what Nvidia sees in ARM.
    edited April 2021 tenthousandthingswatto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 74
    tmaytmay Posts: 6,311member
    elijahg said:
    cloudguy said:
    dk49 said:
    If ARM has its own AI engine now, what does it mean for Apple's Neural engine? Is it possible for Apple to completely discard ARMs AI engine in their processors or they will have to build theirs on top of ARMs? If yes then will it not break ARM's licence? 
    See above. Apple is an ARM Holdings co-founder. They have a perpetual architectural license.
    The fact that they were an ARM Holdings co-founder is no longer relevant to anything, they sold (AFAIK) all their interests in ARM long ago, and have never had a controlling stake. The perpetual architectural license was acquired when Apple bought PA Semi in 2008. NVIDIA also has an architectural license, along with MS and Qualcomm, so there's no reason they couldn't match Apple's M1 CPU speeds - except their engineers aren't good enough, apparently. So not really sure what Nvidia sees in ARM.
    A disadvantage of not controlling the whole stack, as Apple does, is that Qualcomm, Samsung, et al, haven't control of Android OS, or Windows OS, and so will never have SOC's as optimized for end users, as Apple will for its own ecosystem. It may not make all that much difference in a mature marketplace, though it appears that Apple still sees an increasing user base, and still benefits from its tight integration of all of the technologies that is has at its disposal.

    Apple also has the ability to smoothly pivot to another architecture, such as Risk V, if it desires.
    edited April 2021 chiawatto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 74
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,624member
    tmay said:
    elijahg said:
    cloudguy said:
    dk49 said:
    If ARM has its own AI engine now, what does it mean for Apple's Neural engine? Is it possible for Apple to completely discard ARMs AI engine in their processors or they will have to build theirs on top of ARMs? If yes then will it not break ARM's licence? 
    See above. Apple is an ARM Holdings co-founder. They have a perpetual architectural license.
    The fact that they were an ARM Holdings co-founder is no longer relevant to anything, they sold (AFAIK) all their interests in ARM long ago, and have never had a controlling stake. The perpetual architectural license was acquired when Apple bought PA Semi in 2008. NVIDIA also has an architectural license, along with MS and Qualcomm, so there's no reason they couldn't match Apple's M1 CPU speeds - except their engineers aren't good enough, apparently. So not really sure what Nvidia sees in ARM.
    A disadvantage of not controlling the whole stack, as Apple does, is that Qualcomm, Samsung, et al, haven't control of Android OS, or Windows OS, and so will never have SOC's as optimized for end users, as Apple will for its own ecosystem. It may not make all that much difference in a mature marketplace, though it appears that Apple still sees an increasing user base, and still benefits from its tight integration of all of the technologies that is has at its disposal.
    Android vendors can control the 'whole stack' if they wish to. Android is open source. It would take a huge investment and vendors would have to effectively re-invent many wheels but it's an option. There are advantages and disadvantages to both scenarios. 

    Huawei has been forced to do exactly that, and as a result, perhaps it could be argued that it controls as much, or more, of the 'whole stack' as Apple.

    It's 5G modem and WiFi chipsets are designed in house, for example. Apple's aren't.

    It can also 'optimise' the stack beyond the CE boundaries of Apple, as it also produces Cloud hardware and services along with AI hardware and services. It also develops it own battery and charging technologies. Not to mention participating in and designing the core communications technologies that are the backbone of today's modern day devices. Apple devices included of course. 

    In software, GMS is being replaced by HMS etc. 

    Qualcomm and especially Samsung are also well placed to do the same if necessary but for different reasons, they have no need to.

    It's worth noting that Huawei has also been reportedly greenlighted to use ARMv9 and just like all vendors, has the option of using RISC-V too. 
    edited April 2021 elijahg
  • Reply 18 of 74
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    cloudguy said:
    rob53 said:
    Is Apple required to push their Apple developed ARM designs back to the main ARM design architecture? It appears v9 will include many of the ideas Apple has developed. 

    As for Nvidia buying Arm Ltd there better be a whole lot more investigation into how Nvidia will be allowed to control the architecture and its users before they’re allowed to buy them. 
    You are wrong on both counts.

    1. The v9 contains things that ARM developed independently that are inferior to Apple's tech.
    2. Apple WILL NOT be required to push their ARM designs back. First off, as a co-founder with a permanent architectural license, Apple is for all intents and purposes an independent entity here. Second, even if they weren't, the other ARM licensees like MediaTek, Huawei, Qualcomm and Samsung don't either. This is a real issue because for awhile both Samsung and Qualcomm were able to develop custom CPU cores that were significantly better tham ARM's generic CPU cores. (Samsung fell behind and gave up; Qualcomm's are only slightly better.) And Qualcomm's Adreno GPU design is MUCH BETTER than ARM Holdings' Mali. (The bad ARM GPUs are a major reason why Google uses Intel for Chromebooks. Samsung ditched Mali for an AMD GPU design. Nvidia's mobile GPU design - hardware and software - is much better also.) So if generic licensees like Qualcomm, Samsung and Nvidia aren't required to give up their IP to ARM Holdings there is no way that Apple - whose license is on far better terms - won't.

    Basically Nvidia buying ARM has nothing to do with Apple. Nvidia doesn't even want in on the CPU game anyway. They tried that already: they made CPUs for the original batch of Android devices. When companies abandoned them for the Qualcomm/Samsung/MediaTek trio they tried to manufacture and sell their own devices - the Nvidia Shield tablet and the Nvidia Shield set top box - but that failed also. Even the Nintendo Switch uses Nvidia CPU designs that are like 4 years old because Nvidia exited that market and never updated them. The Nintendo Switch Pro will have a slightly updated Tegra CPU, but it still won't use the latest ARM cores or the latest process. Nvidia buying ARM is all about cloud, edge and IoT stuff plus ML/AI stuff, and those are areas that an end user consumer hardware company like Apple only dabbles in.
    I wouldn’t say that vi is inferior to Apple’s work. This isn’t what Apple is doing. Apple will very likely upgrade their own work to v9, as they did with v8.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 19 of 74
    tmaytmay Posts: 6,311member
    avon b7 said:
    tmay said:
    elijahg said:
    cloudguy said:
    dk49 said:
    If ARM has its own AI engine now, what does it mean for Apple's Neural engine? Is it possible for Apple to completely discard ARMs AI engine in their processors or they will have to build theirs on top of ARMs? If yes then will it not break ARM's licence? 
    See above. Apple is an ARM Holdings co-founder. They have a perpetual architectural license.
    The fact that they were an ARM Holdings co-founder is no longer relevant to anything, they sold (AFAIK) all their interests in ARM long ago, and have never had a controlling stake. The perpetual architectural license was acquired when Apple bought PA Semi in 2008. NVIDIA also has an architectural license, along with MS and Qualcomm, so there's no reason they couldn't match Apple's M1 CPU speeds - except their engineers aren't good enough, apparently. So not really sure what Nvidia sees in ARM.
    A disadvantage of not controlling the whole stack, as Apple does, is that Qualcomm, Samsung, et al, haven't control of Android OS, or Windows OS, and so will never have SOC's as optimized for end users, as Apple will for its own ecosystem. It may not make all that much difference in a mature marketplace, though it appears that Apple still sees an increasing user base, and still benefits from its tight integration of all of the technologies that is has at its disposal.
    Android vendors can control the 'whole stack' if they wish to. Android is open source. It would take a huge investment and vendors would have to effectively re-invent many wheels but it's an option. There advantages and disadvantages to both scenarios. 

    Huawei has been forced to do exactly that, and as a result, perhaps it could be argued that it controls as much, or more, of the 'whole stack' as Apple.

    It's 5G modem and WiFi chipsets are designed in house, for example. Apple's aren't.

    It can also 'optimise' the stack beyond the CE boundaries of Apple, as it also produces Cloud hardware and services along with AI hardware and services. It also develops it own battery and charging technologies. Not to mention participating in and designing the core communications technologies that are the backbone of today's modern day devices. Apple devices included of course. 

    In software, GMS is being replaced by HMS etc. 

    Qualcomm and especially Samsung are also well placed to do the same if necessary but for different reasons, they have no need to.

    It's worth noting that Huawei has also been reportedly greenlighted to use ARMv9 and just like all vendors, has the option of using RISC-V too. 
    You would be accurate in stating that Huawei is on a possible path to that, but factually, Huawei is not anywhere close to where Apple is in SOC development, and that takes into account the short term advantage that Huawei has with integration of 5G into its smartphone SOC. I also take exception to their Android fork being very developed, though of course, you have disagreed with that in the past, against published evidence that it is mostly a vanilla copy.

    Samsung has attempted to, but has never been able to replicate Apple's success and continue to trail in SOC performance, and density, and Qualcomm develops a range of SOC's for its many customers.

    As I have stated before; every year, Apple ships about 70% of its units based on its single, current (A14), A series processor, and this year, it appears that Apple will approach 250m iPhone units, which is in the neighborhood of 175 million A14's, not including iPad's. Not in anyone's universe will Qualcomm come close to those numbers for the Snapdragon 888, nor Samsung for the Exynos 2100, nor Huawei for the Kirin 9000. 

    What's interesting is how much of an advantage Apple continues to carry over its competitors, and the M series is yet another instance.
    edited April 2021 rundhvidDogpersonwatto_cobrasphericlibertyforall
  • Reply 20 of 74
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,624member
    tmay said:
    avon b7 said:
    tmay said:
    elijahg said:
    cloudguy said:
    dk49 said:
    If ARM has its own AI engine now, what does it mean for Apple's Neural engine? Is it possible for Apple to completely discard ARMs AI engine in their processors or they will have to build theirs on top of ARMs? If yes then will it not break ARM's licence? 
    See above. Apple is an ARM Holdings co-founder. They have a perpetual architectural license.
    The fact that they were an ARM Holdings co-founder is no longer relevant to anything, they sold (AFAIK) all their interests in ARM long ago, and have never had a controlling stake. The perpetual architectural license was acquired when Apple bought PA Semi in 2008. NVIDIA also has an architectural license, along with MS and Qualcomm, so there's no reason they couldn't match Apple's M1 CPU speeds - except their engineers aren't good enough, apparently. So not really sure what Nvidia sees in ARM.
    A disadvantage of not controlling the whole stack, as Apple does, is that Qualcomm, Samsung, et al, haven't control of Android OS, or Windows OS, and so will never have SOC's as optimized for end users, as Apple will for its own ecosystem. It may not make all that much difference in a mature marketplace, though it appears that Apple still sees an increasing user base, and still benefits from its tight integration of all of the technologies that is has at its disposal.
    Android vendors can control the 'whole stack' if they wish to. Android is open source. It would take a huge investment and vendors would have to effectively re-invent many wheels but it's an option. There advantages and disadvantages to both scenarios. 

    Huawei has been forced to do exactly that, and as a result, perhaps it could be argued that it controls as much, or more, of the 'whole stack' as Apple.

    It's 5G modem and WiFi chipsets are designed in house, for example. Apple's aren't.

    It can also 'optimise' the stack beyond the CE boundaries of Apple, as it also produces Cloud hardware and services along with AI hardware and services. It also develops it own battery and charging technologies. Not to mention participating in and designing the core communications technologies that are the backbone of today's modern day devices. Apple devices included of course. 

    In software, GMS is being replaced by HMS etc. 

    Qualcomm and especially Samsung are also well placed to do the same if necessary but for different reasons, they have no need to.

    It's worth noting that Huawei has also been reportedly greenlighted to use ARMv9 and just like all vendors, has the option of using RISC-V too. 
    You would be accurate in stating that Huawei is on a possible path to that, but factually, Huawei is not anywhere close to where Apple is in SOC development, and that takes into account the short term advantage that Huawei has with integration of 5G into its smartphone SOC. I also take exception to their Android fork being very developed, though of course, you have disagreed with that in the past, against published evidence that it is mostly a vanilla copy.

    Samsung has attempted to, but has never been able to replicate Apple's success and continue to trail in SOC performance, and density, and Qualcomm develops a range of SOC's for its many customers.

    As I have stated before; every year, Apple ships about 70% of its units based on its single, current (A14), A series processor, and this year, it appears that Apple will approach 250m iPhone units, which is in the neighborhood of 175 million A14's, not including iPad's. Not in anyone's universe will Qualcomm come close to those numbers for the Snapdragon 888, nor Samsung for the Exynos 2100, nor Huawei for the Kirin 9000. 

    What's interesting is how much of an advantage Apple continues to carry over its competitors, and the M series is yet another instance.
    Huawei is right up there with Apple on SoC development. On process node and even besting Apple on transistor density. On timing. On getting their modems on SoC, on ISP and DSP development, on secure enclave etc.

    The amount of processors Apple ships is totally irrevelant. What does that have to do with the advantages of owning the whole stack? And you are making some utterly wild projections anyway. Why not try to run with something that is more realistic, like what they shipped last year? Either way, quantity would still mean nothing but if that is what you want, Mediatek reportedly shipped over 350 million processors last year.

    As for the advantage Apple continues to have over competitors, are you claiming that not being able to ship a latest generation 5G modem on SoC is an advantage?

    And as for 'the Android fork' (eh?) not being very developed, it already contained more APIs than Google GMS Android, and two days ago, Beta 3 was released, adding 1,000 more APIs. Considering no one outside China has even seen the system, you are jumping to A LOT of uninformed conclusions. Especially as the system already has a release date for handsets: 24 April.

    I think we should just wait and see on that one. 
    elijahg
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