tenthousandthings

I realize the forums are a tiny aspect of Apple Insider, and it's a giant pain in the ass to moderate them, but this article/editorial contains two factual errors that have already been addressed repeatedly in the comments on earlier articles that made the same mistake—if the author had read those comments, he could have made a stronger argument here.

First and foremost, the A16 is 4nm. Apple stated that outright. It is the N4 process. The linked The Information article AI covered on December 23 may have some elements of truth in it. After all, chipmaking is hard, or everyone would be doing it. Especially high-end graphics. The quote from Ian Cutress therein says all that needs to be said. But it's Apple Insider who makes the leap there to say that the A16 stayed on 5nm and didn't go to 4nm because of these challenges. That is just wrong, wrong, wrong. The A16 did go to 4nm (N4). Apple touted this in its presentation. I find this insistence otherwise, in multiple articles by two different members of the AI staff (Wesley twice and now Malcolm), to be just inexplicable.

The second error is more of a detail, but it's an important one if you're going to be editorializing about Apple and chipmaking. TSMC's so-called "4nm" is the third generation of its 5nm (N5) FinFET platform. It's not a "die shrink," to reference Malcolm's 2019 article where he laid out some of the factors driving Apple's A-series chip production. It uses the same design library. N4 is a second "Tock" not a "Tick," to use the same terms Malcolm used in 2019. That's why Apple could easily revert to the A15 graphics designs for A16 (while staying with N4 for A16, instead of N5P used for the A15), as rumored/leaked in the aforementioned The Information article.

TSMC provides a definitive English-language source of information about how these “process technologies” relate to one another: https://www.tsmc.com/english/dedicatedFoundry/technology/logic

I've been waiting for a thread to post this in, I guess it can go here. The tl;dr version is there has been one other unusual, long time interval in the past history of Apple Silicon, between the A10 and the A10X, and that is the only case where Apple switched process nodes in between. This fact could indicate that the reason for the similarly long interval between the M2 and the M2Pro/Max (at least) is because of a process node change.

Apple's listing on the Trademark List appears to be something of a fuck you to these folks. Memoji as listed there now is all-caps MEMOJI® (unlike every other mark listed) and if you look at the original lawsuit, you'll find the Android app was using MEMOJI while Apple was using Memoji. This is also in contrast to how Apple actually uses it, as Memoji.

Basically Social Tech filed an intent to use MEMOJI [Pseudo mark: ME MOJI] in April 2016 and then, more than two years later, was still not ready to go when Apple launched Memoji. They then scrambled to put something out so they could capitalize on having filed the intent to use and maintained it over those two years.

Also, the trademark application that Apple did buy was for MEmoji ... [Pseudo mark: ME EMOJI] -- filed April 2017.

So they are different.

Maybe when Apple's lawyer cites "common law" in its defense he is talking about the fact Social Technologies did not launch until after Apple did so. So they can't complain about getting swamped, and they have no right to recompense for that. Apple isn't required to sit around waiting to see if Social Tech will ever launch. They can argue about ME EMOJI versus ME MOJI, but that's all. And maybe that's a loser for Social Tech, because ME EMOJI is a stronger pseudo mark than ME MOJI -- WTF is a "MOJI" ? -- when Apple uses "Memoji."

Misogyny aside, this is her job, and there is no question the government needs to look at these issues and take positions. The App Store bullshit is minor in the overall picture. Whatever oversight or regulation that gets enacted in that respect will not pose any serious issues for Apple. 

No, social platforms like Facebook will be front and center here. Things like the Instagram acquisition and other kinds of anti-competitive practices need to be looked at. Not to mention privacy and security aspects. The idea we should all sit around with our thumbs up our asses while we let people like Mark Zuckerberg do whatever they like is not going to fly.

Marvin said:

AppleInsider said:

The M3 Pro's base configuration is anticipated to have 12 CPU cores, again split evenly between performance and efficiency cores, and an 18-core GPU. The top configuration will use add two more performance cores, bringing the total to 14, as well as a 20-core GPU.

The M3 Max will start with a base configuration of 16 CPU cores, using 12 performance and four efficiency cores, and a 32-core GPU. On the high end, the M3 Max will have the same 16-core CPU but a 40-core GPU.

I'd expect the 12-core M3 Pro to be 8 performance-cores, it would be unusual to have 6 efficiency cores on Pro and 4 on Max. Plus M2 Pro 10-core already has 6 performance cores, 4 efficiency. Moving to 6p/6e only increases the efficiency cores. 8p/4e would increase CPU performance at least 50%.

The GPU core counts look like a small increase so I'd say they will increase transistor count per core:

https://wccftech.com/apple-a10-fusion-cores-bigger-than-competition/

"One reason why Apple is adamant is designing larger cores is because having more transistors per core helps when performance and efficiency per-watt metric is calculated. While this might not be a good approach when conserving space, clock efficiency greatly increases thanks to these decisions."

They might also have a strategy similar to Intel's tick-tock. 2nm won't be ready until late 2025/2026 so they have to make 3nm last for 2023/2024/2025. I doubt they would throw everything in with the first 3nm revision then have a small refresh in 2025. It's best to split it so that each refresh has a worthwhile improvement (~50% increase each time) so that M4 (2025) is 2x M2 performance.

cpsro said:

ApplePoor said:

There is also an iPhone 15 Pro series CPU processor change mid year which might be a negative for the early adopters.

There is or will be a change to the process used by TSMC to produce the A17 Bionic? What do you know about this?

ApplePoor said:

Was posted on forum several weeks back. Initial ones until inventory is depleted then new "improved" model probably starting early next year, Apple had purchased "all" of the production of the first chip.

I think this is a reference to this rumor from June: Apple iPhone 15 chip manufacturing may shift to a less expensive track (Apple Insider)

But that is unsubstantiated and a typical sort of connect-the-dots rumor that often turns out to be wrong, because Apple's special, disruptive, and wildly-successful relationship with TSMC is still not very well understood, even though we are ten years into it at this point (it started with TSMC 20nm, with iPhone 6). Yes, it is confirmed that TSMC's mainstream 3nm production will shift to N3E, and the second-generation refinement N3P will be built on N3E, not N3 (the name of which has been changed to N3B to differentiate it from N3E). But that does not mean Apple will necessarily be included in that detour. It's entirely possible A17 Pro, M3, and M3 Pro/Max will all be N3, and not N3E. Not to mention the uncertain possibility of a non-Pro A17 next year (basically A17 without the "Pro" GPU, mirroring the now-established approach to M-series silicon).

For this perspective, see Daniel Nenni's comments on the June rumor: TSMC’s 3nm Output Could Reach Up To 100,000 Wafers Monthly By The End of 2023 (SemiWiki main forum post)

What gets lost behind the veil of secrecy is the reason why TSMC is sending everyone but Apple over to N3E. N3 is specific to Apple. As a result, it's not flexible enough for a wider array of customers. There's a deep dive into what is known here, but keep in mind that TSMC's published papers just sort of chart differences, they don't give away trade secrets: TSMC N3, And Challenges Ahead (WikiChip Fuse)

There's a very good chance Apple is happy with N3, and they won't be going over to N3E. The mysterious N3S could also be Apple-specific. Regardless, it will all merge back together with N2 and M4.

LOL, this is the opposite of what I said last night in the Intel Mac Pro versus M2 Pro Mac mini thread. All that beautiful thermal engineering, the MPX modules with Infinity Fabric Link, it all goes to waste, discontinued less than four years after launch (December 2019)? That would be a shame. I really don't think Apple is in the business of shooting itself in the foot like that.

It would, however, be very Apple-like to use an UltraFusion-like interconnect (which is similar to AMD's Infinity Fabric), so the MPX options at launch would be limited and expensive. 

IIRC, this (anti-steering) was the one part of the Epic case that they lost in California. So it’s hard to see how Apple thought this would fly in the EU. I think they know they can’t avoid a fine, they’re making these points in their appeal to establish the framework for their ultimate response, which is going to be something similar to what they’re doing with the DMA rules. 

I read the article, looking for something to support the headline’s claim that Young “tries excusing his return to Spotify by saying Apple Music is now as bad” — but nothing in the article supports that assertion. Young explained why he was returning, his “excuse” being that Rogan’s disinformation is now available everywhere, so his rationale of not wanting his music on the same platform is no longer valid.

I get that Apple isn’t the same as Spotify in terms of supporting Rogan’s disinformation, but Young didn’t say anything about that, at least according to this article.

I gather Young thinks Apple is “now as bad” as Spotify in terms of technical sound quality, his personal white whale, but that has nothing to do with why he left Spotify, or why he returned. The headline seems to conflate the two issues (disinformation and sound).

Interesting set of comments above. I can't see the Mac Pro getting capabilities that can't also be acquired via external Thunderbolt/PCIe enclosures for the Mac Studio and MacBook Pro. I think that's the unspoken, as-yet unrealized message that the 2023 Mac Pro sends. Its place in the lineup is about convenience, having everything inside a box. It's not about having capabilities no other Mac can reach.

Maybe at one point, early on in the development of Mac silicon, Apple thought an Extreme, quad M-series variant for Mac Pro only would make sense. The original "Jade" leak, which was otherwise 100% correct, suggests that. But that is ancient history now. It dates to before the Mac Studio and, more importantly, to before the A17/M3 graphics architecture. Apple has been driving toward this since at least the A12X in 2018. That October 30 presentation in Brooklyn ("More in the Making") for the iPad Pro is important, and with the benefit of hindsight we can see it is the first major event that foreshadows the transition to A14/M1 -- the executives on stage, which include Anand Shimpi (for the first time, I think, I could be wrong), know there is no turning back. It's a very different feel from 2017, in retrospect. 

If they abandoned the M1/M2 Extreme in favor of a different approach, a change in direction that may have been hinted at by Anand Shimpi less than a year ago (February 2023), then Apple has displayed an ability to adapt that is heartening. The whole trajectory from 2017 to the present looks really good in that respect.

I think there's no rush. They need PCIe 5 (let alone 6) and Thunderbolt 5/DisplayPort 2.1 to build this structure, and the industry shift to these standards will progress slowly. But I think it's pretty clear that Apple knows what it is doing. There are signs. For example, there were people all up in arms about how Apple uses PCIe lanes in the 2023 Mac Pro, but those criticisms were all predicated on expectations for PCIe 3 lanes, not PCIe 4. The whole thing was just unbelievably stupid.